Sample records for high performance sustainable

The aim of this study was to identify patterns of high-performing behaviors and nurse manager perceptions of the factors of Magnet® sustainability at a multidesignated Magnet organization. The Magnet program recognizes exemplary professional nursing practice and is challenging to achieve and sustain. Only 10% (n = 42) of Magnet hospitals sustained designation for 12 years or longer. This study explored the perspectives of Magnet nurse managers regarding high-performing teams and the sustainability of Magnet designation. A qualitative study of nurse managers was conducted at 1 multidesignated Magnet organization (n = 13). Interview responses were analyzed using pattern recognition of Magnet model domains and characteristics of high-performing teams and then related to factors of Magnet sustainability. Transformational leadership is both an essential factor for sustainability and a potential barrier to sustainability of Magnet designation. Transformational nursing leaders lead high-performing teams and should be in place at all levels as an essential factor in sustaining Magnet redesignation.

By adopting a Bohm-type thermal diffusion coefficient related to the energy confinement enhancement factor H within the conventional magnetic shear regime, and a mixed Bohm-gyro-Bohm thermal diffusion coefficient related to the shear within the negative central magnetic shear regime, considering the effect of the α particle anomalous diffusion and the dynamic feedback heating, and starting from energy transport of electrons and ions, we have studied the highperformance self-sustaining burning deuterium-tritium plasma under a given plasma density profile for the two different kinds of magnetic shear regimes. Some conclusions are obtained: under the conventional shear, only when H≥3, the D-T burning can produce a large power output, and when H is larger than a certain value (H≅4), D-T plasma self-sustained burning can be maintained without the dynamic feedback heating; under the negative central shear, the plasmas have a higher plasma performance and a larger power output than that under conventional shear, and D-T plasma self-sustained burning can be maintained without the dynamic feedback heating power, the suitable alpha particle diffusion is advantage ous to D-T plasma burning under the conventional shear, and D-T self-sustained burning cannot be maintained under a large α particle anomalous diffusion for the negative central shear. The dynamic feedback heating power is important for sustaining D-T plasma burning under the conventional shear

In October 2009, President Obama signed Executive Order (EO) 13514 that sets sustainability : goals for Federal agencies and focuses on making improvements in environmental, energy and : economic performance. The Executive Order requires Federal agen...

What makes for sustainable individual and organizational performance? Employees who are thriving-not just satisfied and productive but also engaged in creating the future. The authors found that people who fit this description demonstrated 16% better overall performance, 125% less burnout, 32% more commitment to the organization, and 46% more job satisfaction than their peers. Thriving has two components: vitality, or the sense of being alive and excited, and learning, or the growth that comes from gaining knowledge and skills. Some people naturally build vitality and learning into their jobs, but most employees are influenced by their environment. Four mechanisms, none of which requires heroic effort or major resources, create the conditions for thriving: providing decision-making discretion, sharing information about the organization and its strategy, minimizing incivility, and offering performance feedback. Organizations such as Alaska Airlines, Zingerman's, Quicken Loans, and Caiman Consulting have found that helping people grow and remain energized at work is valiant on its own merits-but it can also boost performance in a sustainable way.

Sustainability is internationally often emphasized as an essential aim of higher education, but more as a principle than on the practical level. This is also obvious in the academic education of primary teachers in Finland. Therefore, it is a great challenge for Finnish teachers to include sustainability in their teaching and everyday life in…

The Access to an up-to-date Material Testing Reactor (MTR) is essential to support a sustainable nuclear energy, meeting industry and public needs, and keeping a high level of scientific expertise. This includes services to existing and coming reactor technologies for major stakes such as safety and competitiveness, lifetime management, operation optimization, development of innovative structural material and fuel required for future systems (innovative Gen III, Gen IV, fusion...), etc. The JHR copes with this context. Design phase has been completed by the end of 2005 and JHR is now under construction. Start of operation is scheduled in 2014. As a new MTR taking benefit of a large available worldwide experience, JHR offers new major experimental capability that will be presented. JHR will be operated within an international users' consortium that will guarantee effective and cost-effective operation. This innovative way to operate a MTR, as a user-facility for the benefit of industry and public bodies, will be presented. (author)

ustainable transport has become a major policy concern in recent years. The term suggests a need to consider transport in a comprehensive perspective including the well-being of both present and future generations, and taking environmental, social and economic issues into account. Indicators...... in forecasting and tracking the performance of transport systems increasingly guide sustainable transport policy making. This review explores the implications of the "sustainable transport" concept and how it can be made operational with indicators. A number of indicator systems are reviewed, and some strengths...... and weaknesses are highlighted with regard to the support they provide for sustainable transport development....

Sustainable transport has become a major policy concern in recent years. The term suggests a need to consider transport in a comprehensive perspective including the well-being of both present and future generations, and taking environmental, social and economic issues into account. Indicators...... in forecasting and tracking the performance of transport systems increasingly guide sustainable transport policy making. This review explores the implications of the sustainable transport concept and how it can be made operational with indicators. A number of indicator systems are reviewed, and some strengths...

This article investigates the outcomes of mainstream coffee voluntary sustainability standards for high-biodiversity coffee diversification. By viewing voluntary sustainability standards certifications as performative marketing tools, we address the question of how such certification schemes affect coffee value creation based on unique biodiversity conservation properties in coffee farming. To date, the voluntary sustainability standards literature has primarily approached biodiversity conservation in coffee farming in the context of financial remuneration to coffee farmers. The performative analysis of voluntary sustainability standards certification undertaken in this paper, in which such certifications are analyzed in terms of their effect on mutually reinforcing representational, normalizing and exchange practices, provides an understanding of coffee diversification potential as dependent on standard criteria and voluntary sustainability standards certification as branding tools. We draw on a case of high-biodiversity, shade-grown coffee-farming practice in Kodagu, South-West India, which represents one of the world's biodiversity "hotspots".

This article investigates the outcomes of mainstream coffee voluntary sustainability standards for high-biodiversity coffee diversification. By viewing voluntary sustainability standards certifications as performative marketing tools, we address the question of how such certification schemes affect coffee value creation based on unique biodiversity conservation properties in coffee farming. To date, the voluntary sustainability standards literature has primarily approached biodiversity conservation in coffee farming in the context of financial remuneration to coffee farmers. The performative analysis of voluntary sustainability standards certification undertaken in this paper, in which such certifications are analyzed in terms of their effect on mutually reinforcing representational, normalizing and exchange practices, provides an understanding of coffee diversification potential as dependent on standard criteria and voluntary sustainability standards certification as branding tools. We draw on a case of high-biodiversity, shade-grown coffee-farming practice in Kodagu, South-West India, which represents one of the world's biodiversity "hotspots".

This report documents the work done in the project “Sustainable Workspace Performance” for Steelcase in the period of October 2006 - December 2007. Today organizations around the world are encouraging and promoting standards for environmentally efficient buildings. Interest in these “green......” buildings have increased immensely, but just like financial metrics do not provide a total view of the effectiveness and efficiency of the workspace, the environmental focus tends to be one dimensional. In this project a framework and a computer-based tool was developed to demonstrate the links between...... was to allow companies to assess their own performance of their workspace in each of the sustainability dimensions relative to their own business context. This is expected to engage and empower companies to take action and make informed sustainable decisions in the design of their workspace....

We investigate the effect of corporate sustainability on organizational processes and performance. Using a matched sample of 180 US companies, we find that corporations that voluntarily adopted sustainability policies by 1993 - termed as HighSustainability companies - exhibit by 2009 distinct organizational processes compared to a matched sample of companies that adopted almost none of these policies - termed as Low Sustainability companies. The boards of directors of HighSustainability com...

USE conference paper. Ever since the mid-1970s a multitude of studies linking corporate sustainabilityperformance (CSP) measures and financial performance measures have been conducted. Until today a plethora of corporate sustainabilityperformance measures heve been developed. A universally

The traditional formwork system is one of the commonly used systems in concrete construction. It is considered as one of the least observed activities in term of sustainabilityperformance. In this paper, the sustainabilityperformance of the traditional formwork has been assessed by using a multi-criteria assessment tool to facilitate the decision on the sustainabilityperformance measurement. A quantitative five Likert scale survey study using judgemental sampling is employed in this study. A sample of 93 of engineering construction experts, with different fields including contractors, developers, and consultants in the Malaysian context has made the body of the collected primary data. The results show variety in the distribution of the respondents’ working experience. The sustainabilityperformance is considered moderately sustainable by the experts with only given 40.24 % of the overall total score for the three sustainable categories namely environmental, social and economic. Despite the finding that shows that the economic pillar was rated as the most sustainable aspect in comparison to the environmental and social pillars the traditional formwork system sustainability still needs enhancement. Further incorporation of the social and environmental pillars into the concrete construction the sustainabilityperformance of traditional formwork system could be improved.

The A3 Foresight Program titled by 'Critical Physics Issues Specific to Steady State Sustainment of High-Performance Plasmas', based on the scientific collaboration among China, Japan and Korea in the field of plasma physics, has been started from August 2012 under the auspice of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, Japan), the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF, Korea) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, China). The main purpose of this project is to enhance joint experiments on three Asian advanced fully superconducting fusion devices (EAST in China, LHD in Japan and KSTAR in Korea) and other magnetic confinement devices to several key physics issues on steady state sustainment of high-performance plasmas. The fourth seminar on the A3 collaboration, as the fifth meeting of A3 program, took place in Kagoshima, Japan, 23-26 June 2014, which was hosted by National Institute for Fusion Science, to discuss achievement during past two years and to summarize intermediate report. New collaborative research was also encouraged as well as participation of young scientists. The topics include steady state sustainment of magnetic configuration, edge and divertor plasma control and confinement of alpha particles. This issue is the collection of 41 papers presented at the entitled meeting. All the 41 of the presented papers are indexed individually. (J.P.N.)

By means of a concrete model for sustainable operational performance enterprises can report uniformly on the sustainability of their contributions to the economy, welfare and the environment. The development and design of a three-dimensional monitoring system is presented and discussed [nl

The A3 Foresight Program titled by 'Critical Physics Issues Specific to Steady State Sustainment of High-Performance Plasmas', based on the scientific collaboration among China, Japan and Korea in the field of plasma physics, has been newly started from August 2012 under the auspice of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, Japan), the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF, Korea) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, China). A seminar on the A3 collaboration took place in Hotel Gozensui, Kushiro, Japan, 22-25 January 2013. This seminar was organized by National Institute for Fusion Science. One special talk and 36 oral talks were presented in the seminar including 13 Chinese, 14 Japanese and 9 Korean attendees. Steady state sustainment of high-performance plasmas is a crucial issue for realizing a nuclear fusion reactor. This seminar was motivated along the issues. Results on fusion experiments and theory obtained through A3 foresight program during recent two years were discussed and summarized. Possible direction of future collaboration and further encouragement of scientific activity of younger scientists were also discussed in this seminar with future experimental plans in three countries. This issue is the collection of 29 papers presented at the entitled meeting. All the 29 of the presented papers are indexed individually. (J.P.N.)

As part its campus sustainability efforts, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has invested in eight new and existing buildings to ensure they meet the U.S. Department of Energy’s requirements for highperformancesustainable buildings (HPSB) at DOE sites. These investments are expected to benefit PNNL by reducing the total life-cycle cost of facilities, improving energy efficiency and water conservation, and making buildings safer and healthier for the occupants. This study examines the cost-effectiveness of the implementing measures that meet the criteria for HPSBs in 3 different types of buildings on the PNNL campus: offices, scientific laboratories, and data centers. In each of the three case studies examined the investments made to achieve HPSB status demonstrated a high return on the HPSB investments that have taken place in these varied environments. Simple paybacks for total investments in the three case study buildings ranged from just 2 to 5 years; savings-to-investment ratios all exceeded the desirable threshold of 1; and the net present values associated with these investments were all positive.

for the comparison and introduction of new conditions or materials into macroscale MFCs, especially nanoscale materials that have high potential for enhanced power production. Here we report a 75 μL microsized MFC on silicon using CMOS-compatible processes and employ

Full Text Available Companies are more and more interested in the improvement of sustainabilityperformance of products, services and processes. For this reason, appropriate and suitable assessment tools supporting the transition to a green economy are highly necessary. Currently, there are a number of methods and approaches for assessing products’ environmental impact and improving their performances; among these, the Life Cycle Thinking (LCT approach has emerged as the most comprehensive and effective to achieve sustainability goals. Indeed, the LCT approach aims to reduce the use of resources and emissions to the environment associated with a product’s life cycle. It can be used as well to improve socio-economic performance through the entire life cycle of a product. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA, Life Cycle Costing (LCC and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA are undoubtedly the most relevant methodologies to support product-related decision-making activities for the extraction and processing of raw materials, manufacturing, distribution, use, reuse, maintenance, recycling and final disposal. While LCA is an internationally standardized tool (ISO 14040 2006, LCC (except for the ISO related to the building sector and S-LCA have yet to attain international standardization (even if guidelines and general frameworks are available. The S-LCA is still in its experimental phase for many aspects of the methodological structure and practical implementation. This study presents the application of LCA and S-LCA to a textile product. The LCA and S-LCA are implemented following the ISO 14040-44:2006 and the guidelines from UNEP/SETAC (2009, respectively. The functional unit of the study is a cape knitted in a soft blend of wool and cashmere produced by a textile company located in Sicily (Italy. The system boundary of the study includes all phases from cradle-to-gate, from raw material production through fabric/accessory production to the manufacturing process of the

This book presents the state of the art in HighPerformance Computing on modern supercomputer architectures. It addresses trends in hardware and software development in general, as well as the future of HighPerformance Computing systems and heterogeneous architectures. The contributions cover a broad range of topics, from improved system management to Computational Fluid Dynamics, HighPerformance Data Analytics, and novel mathematical approaches for large-scale systems. In addition, they explore innovative fields like coupled multi-physics and multi-scale simulations. All contributions are based on selected papers presented at the 24th Workshop on Sustained Simulation Performance, held at the University of Stuttgart’s HighPerformance Computing Center in Stuttgart, Germany in December 2016 and the subsequent Workshop on Sustained Simulation Performance, held at the Cyberscience Center, Tohoku University, Japan in March 2017.

Sustainable transportation is generally used to refer to transportation that contributes to the sustainable development of the community that owns and uses the system. The Transportation Research Board defines sustainability as: Sustainability is ...

Full Text Available Performance became a very important topic especially when it comes into discussion the idea of sustainability. If we think to the value added and the level of employees, an important sector for our society and economy is the Manufacturing because it provides a high value added to GDP (gross domestic product and also provides a high amount of work places at European level and also in Romania. The main goal of this paper is to analyse the performance of the largest enterprises from Romania that are part from the Manufacturing sector. This very large enterprises could be trend setters in their subindustries for the small and medium ones. The paper is composed from three parts. In the first part it is analysed the literature developed by specialist in the domain of sustainability and financial performance. The second part is an overview of the evolution of Manufacturing sector in the past years and the last one comes to underline the performances of this sector by analysing the evolution of specific indicators regarding the sustainability and performance of enterprise. In conclusion’s side there are made some suggestions about the importance of this sector for Romania’s economy and also for a sustainable development.

The book presents the state of the art in high-performance computing and simulation on modern supercomputer architectures. It explores general trends in hardware and software development, and then focuses specifically on the future of high-performance systems and heterogeneous architectures. It also covers applications such as computational fluid dynamics, material science, medical applications and climate research and discusses innovative fields like coupled multi-physics or multi-scale simulations. The papers included were selected from the presentations given at the 20th Workshop on Sustained Simulation Performance at the HLRS, University of Stuttgart, Germany in December 2015, and the subsequent Workshop on Sustained Simulation Performance at Tohoku University in February 2016.

There has been considerable debate on and research efforts into the question as to if, and if so when, improving corporate sustainabilityperformance is not only beneficial for social and environmental wellbeing but also for the financial wellbeing of a firm. So far, the literature has reported

member performance of specific behaviors" ( Nivea et al., 1978, p. 59). They have identified four major performance categories, and several performance...within the fire direction center several artillerymen work additively. The number of men in the fire direction center does not add steps to the sequence...Instructional strategies for training men of high and low aptitude. HumRRO-TR-73-10. Alexandria, VA: Human Resources Organization, April 1973. Blum, M.L. and

Presentations on the 11th International Conference on Occupational Stress and Health. Session: organizational justice and sustainability: approaches and implications for performance and the bottom line. Interactive paper session: sustainability, occupational safety and health: developing a research

Highperformance buildings, also known as sustainable buildings and green buildings, are resource efficient structures that minimize the impact on the environment by using less energy and water, reduce solid waste and pollutants, and limit the depletion of natural resources while also providing a thermally and visually comfortable working environment that increases productivity for building occupants. As Idaho National Laboratory (INL) becomes the nation’s premier nuclear energy research laboratory, the physical infrastructure will be established to help accomplish this mission. This infrastructure, particularly the buildings, should incorporate highperformancesustainable design features in order to be environmentally responsible and reflect an image of progressiveness and innovation to the public and prospective employees. Additionally, INL is a large consumer of energy that contributes to both carbon emissions and resource inefficiency. In the current climate of rising energy prices and political pressure for carbon reduction, this guide will help new construction project teams to design facilities that are sustainable and reduce energy costs, thereby reducing carbon emissions. With these concerns in mind, the recommendations described in the INL HighPerformance Building Strategy (previously called the INL Green Building Strategy) are intended to form the INL foundation for highperformance building standards. This revised strategy incorporates the latest federal and DOE orders (Executive Order [EO] 13514, “Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance” [2009], EO 13423, “Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management” [2007], and DOE Order 430.2B, “Departmental Energy, Renewable Energy, and Transportation Management” [2008]), the latest guidelines, trends, and observations in highperformance building construction, and the latest changes to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

This textbook provides an introduction to the concept of sustainability in the context of transportation planning, management, and decision-making. The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, indicators and frameworks for measuring sustainable development in the transportation sector...... are developed. In the second, the authors analyze actual planning and decision-making in transportation agencies in a variety of governance settings. This analysis of real-world case studies demonstrates the benefits and limitations of current approaches to sustainable development in transportation. The book...... concludes with a discussion on how to make sustainability count in transportation decision-making and practice....

This paper presents the European approach to improve sustainability in the building sector, which has a very high potential for considerable reduction of energy consumption in the coming years. By approving the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive the European Union has taken a strong...... leadership role in promoting energy efficiency in buildings in Europe, that will be the most powerful instrument developed to date for the building sector in Europe....

Full Text Available Improving sustainabilityperformance in developing infrastructure projects is an important strategy for pursuing the mission of sustainable development. In recent years, the business model of public-private-partnership (PPP is promoted as an effective approach in developing infrastructure projects. It is considered that the distribution of the contribution on project investment between private and public sectors is one of the key variables affecting sustainabilityperformance of PPP-type projects. This paper examines the impacts of the contribution distribution between public and private sectors on project sustainabilityperformance. A model named the sustainabilityperformance-based evaluation model (SPbEM is developed for assisting the assessment of the level of sustainabilityperformance of PPP projects. The study examines the possibility of achieving better sustainability through proper arrangement of the investment distribution between the two primary sectors in developing PPP-type infrastructure projects.

In order to achieve improved sustainability, local authorities need to use tools that adequately describe and synthesize environmental information. This article illustrates a methodological approach that organizes a wide suite of environmental indicators into few aggregated indices, making use of correlation, principal component analysis, and fuzzy sets. Furthermore, a weighting system, which includes stakeholders' priorities and ambitions, is applied. As a case study, the described methodology is applied to the Reggio Emilia Province in Italy, by considering environmental information from 45 municipalities. Principal component analysis is used to condense an initial set of 19 indicators into 6 fundamental dimensions that highlight patterns of environmental conditions at the provincial scale. These dimensions are further aggregated in two indices of environmental performance through fuzzy sets. The simple form of these indices makes them particularly suitable for public communication, as they condensate a wide set of heterogeneous indicators. The main outcomes of the analysis and the potential applications of the method are discussed.

Congestion controls are a key factor in achieving the robust performance required of common channel signaling (CCS) networks in the face of partial network failures and extreme traffic loads, especially as networks become large and carry high traffic volume. The CCITT recommendations define a number of types of congestion control, and the parameters of the controls must be well set in order to ensure their efficacy under transient and sustained signalling network overload. The objective of this paper is to present a modeling approach to the determination of the network parameters that govern the performance of the SS7 congestion controls under sustained overload. Results of the investigation by simulation are presented and discussed.

Full Text Available The article deals with corporate sustainability and environmental and social issues of the integration of corporate performance measurement that may lead to sustainable economic success. Sustainability is a strategy of the process of sustainable development. Sustainability of businesses and sustainableperformance can be defined as an integration of environmental, social and economic performance. First and foremost, businesses will want to know what indicators can be used to measure environmental, social and economic performance. What is the mutual relationship between environmental, social and economic performance? How can firms arrive at a comprehensive assessment of their performance in relation to sustainability? The aim of this paper is to analyze corporate environmental, social and economic performance and to analyze their mutual relationships. The final part of the article is an assessment of the contemporary situation and draft Key Performance Indicators (KPI for assessment of corporate sustainability that will be the subject of further research in a selected NACE-CZ sector and in accordance with Corporate Sustainability Reporting. KPI provide businesses with a means of measuring progress toward achieving objectives.

Full Text Available Over the past few years, issues of sustainability are gaining greater prominence among organizations and their stakeholders around the world and with it the effective measurement of environmental performance has been a challenge for sustainable transition. The purpose of the article is to analyse, through the the perception of market experts and researchers, what sustainableperformance measures have stronger positive correlation to achieve organizational sustainability in order to help employees in making decisions that reduce the consumption of resources and that create value throughout its chain. The research is of an exploratory and descriptive nature, with qualitative and quantitative method and has a deductive logic. It aims to help professionals and academics who want to start the measurement and continuous improvement of economic, environmental, social, governance and technical performance of their organizations. Finally, the analyzes allow direct efforts to sustainable measures considered most important, allowing the transition of the organization for sustainability.

In this practical demo we illustrate the concept of "sustainableperformance" in Energy-Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks (EH-WSNs). In particular, for different classes of applications and under several energy harvesting scenarios, we show how it is possible to have sustainableperformance when...

This book presents the state of the art in high-performance computing and simulation on modern supercomputer architectures. It covers trends in hardware and software development in general and the future of high-performance systems and heterogeneous architectures in particular. The application-related contributions cover computational fluid dynamics, material science, medical applications and climate research; innovative fields such as coupled multi-physics and multi-scale simulations are highlighted. All papers were chosen from presentations given at the 18th Workshop on Sustained Simulation Performance held at the HLRS, University of Stuttgart, Germany in October 2013 and subsequent Workshop of the same name held at Tohoku University in March 2014.

Sustainable corporate performance (SCP) requires balancing a corporation's economic, social, and environmental performance. This research explores values, beliefs about the importance of SCP, and buying behaviors of supermarket customers from within a stakeholder framework. Beliefs about the

This thesis compares the performance and risk factor exposure of sustainable and conventional mutual funds in emerging markets from January 2012 to July 2017. We use the latest sustainability ratings provided by Morningstar to define sustainable funds, and apply CAPM, Fama-French and Carhart models to control for the market, size, book-to-market and momentum factors. Additionally, we add a dummy to compare the risk-adjusted returns of the funds, and examine if the difference is...

Sustainability disclosure is a topic of great interest among academics and practitioners. As a key means of disclosing an organizationâ€™s sustainability information, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) report is adopted by most organizations nowadays. It also becomes an important information source for stakeholders. However, there is a concern that many stakeholders perceive CSR reports are reflections of the sustainabilityperformance of organizations. This misunderstanding could lead...

This book presents a collection of recent research works that highlight best practice solutions, case studies and practical advice on the implementation of sustainable construction techniques. It includes a set of new developments in the field of building performance simulation, building sustainability assessment, sustainable management, asset and maintenance management and service-life prediction. Accordingly, the book will appeal to a broad readership of professionals, scientists, students, practitioners, lecturers and other interested parties.

Supplier selection plays an important role in the supply chain management and traditional criteria such as price, quality, and flexibility are considered for supplier performance evaluation in researches. In recent years sustainability has received more attention in the supply chain management literature with triple bottom line (TBL) describing the sustainability in supply chain management with social, environmental, and economic initiatives. This paper explores sustainability in supply chain...

Can prefabrication contribute to the development of highperformance homes? To answer this question, this chapter defines highperformance in more broadly inclusive terms, acknowledging the technical, architectural, social and economic conditions under which energy consumption and production occur....... Consideration of all these factors is a precondition for a truly integrated practice and as this chapter demonstrates, innovative project delivery methods founded on the manufacturing of prefabricated buildings contribute to the production of highperformance homes that are cost effective to construct, energy...

Supplier selection plays an important role in the supply chain management and traditional criteria such as price, quality, and flexibility are considered for supplier performance evaluation in researches. In recent years sustainability has received more attention in the supply chain management literature with triple bottom line (TBL) describing the sustainability in supply chain management with social, environmental, and economic initiatives. This paper explores sustainability in supply chain management and examines the problem of identifying a new model for supplier selection based on extended model of TBL approach in supply chain by presenting fuzzy multicriteria method. Linguistic values of experts' subjective preferences are expressed with fuzzy numbers and Neofuzzy TOPSIS is proposed for finding the best solution of supplier selection problem. Numerical results show that the proposed model is efficient for integrating sustainability in supplier selection problem. The importance of using complimentary aspects of sustainability and Neofuzzy TOPSIS concept in sustainable supplier selection process is shown with sensitivity analysis.

HighPerformance Marine Vessels (HPMVs) range from the Fast Ferries to the latest high speed Navy Craft, including competition power boats and hydroplanes, hydrofoils, hovercraft, catamarans and other multi-hull craft. HighPerformance Marine Vessels covers the main concepts of HPMVs and discusses historical background, design features, services that have been successful and not so successful, and some sample data of the range of HPMVs to date. Included is a comparison of all HPMVs craft and the differences between them and descriptions of performance (hydrodynamics and aerodynamics). Readers will find a comprehensive overview of the design, development and building of HPMVs. In summary, this book: Focuses on technology at the aero-marine interface Covers the full range of highperformance marine vessel concepts Explains the historical development of various HPMVs Discusses ferries, racing and pleasure craft, as well as utility and military missions HighPerformance Marine Vessels is an ideal book for student...

Full Text Available Urbanization, particularly in developing countries, is a major strategy for development. However, major concerns accompany it, such as air pollution, habitat destruction, and loss of arable land. In responding to these challenges, governments throughout the world have been implementing various policy mechanisms to guide the practice of urbanization towards sustainable development. It appears that there is little research investigating the outcomes of those efforts in implementing sustainable urbanization strategies. This paper provides a profile of sustainable urbanization from a global perspective. Data used for this research cover 111 countries and are collected from the World Bank database and the United Nation database. A ranking list of sustainableperformance of urbanization between these countries is produced and discussed. The study suggests that countries at different stages of urbanization have achieved different levels of sustainableperformance. The research results provide significant references for future study in the field of urbanization from a global perspective.

Full Text Available This study analyzes how Management Accounting and Control Systems (MACS facilitate the appropriation of the benefits of sustainable innovations in organizations. In particular, this paper examines the moderating role of different types of MACS in the relationships between sustainable innovation and international performance at an organizational level. We collected survey data from 123 Spanish and Portuguese organizations. Partial Least Square was used to analyze the data. Results show that the effect of sustainable innovations on international performance is enhanced by contemporary rather than traditional types of MACS. Overall our findings show that MACS can help managers to develop and monitor organizational activities (e.g., costumer services and distribution activities, which support the appropriation of the potential benefits from sustainable innovation. This paper responds to recent calls for in-depth studies about the organizational mechanism that may enhance the success of sustainable innovation.

This document provides a written compilation of the presentations and viewgraphs from the 1994 Conference on High Speed Computing given at the High Speed Computing Conference, {open_quotes}HighPerformance Systems,{close_quotes} held at Gleneden Beach, Oregon, on April 18 through 21, 1994.

This book is ideal for developers who have experience in developing websites or possess minor knowledge of how responsive websites work. No experience of high-level website development or performance tweaking is required.

.... In essence, most commercial high-performance polymers are processed through fiber spinning, following Nature and spider silk, which is still pound-for-pound the toughest liquid crystalline polymer...

Full Text Available Sustainableperformance in microinsurance offering in low-income markets is important to ensure that the service simultaneously achieves corporate profitability and poverty alleviation. Sustainableperformance requires a balanced integration of supply and demand factors in the offering of the service. Microinsurance is still supply driven thereby creating a lopsided mismatch between demand and supply that leads to oversupply and low uptake. On the basis of extant literature, the paper aims to propose and discuss factors critical to demand and supply of microinsurance. A conceptual framework for sustainable microinsurance is presented with individual metrics that can be addressed as managerial tools for driving and controlling sustained superior performance. While this is a theoretical paper, microinsurance practitioners may benefit from the application of the presented theory

literature on performance measurement. The information of Japanese cases is obtained by review of key policy documents, reports and academic papers and through a series of semi-structured interviews with experts and officials in Japan. The paper combines insights from two ongoing research projects supported......The challenges associated with using performance measurement to steer transport policy towards sustainability include general aspects of measuring sustainability of transport systems with indicators as well as specific national and institutional conditions for adopting and responding...... to the information produced by such sustainability indicator systems. Japan is interesting in these regards, since the country has adopted strategies for achieving a more sustainable transport situation, as well as frameworks of policy performance measurement and management. The paper will describe a general...

Purpose: Continuous performance tasks (CPTs) are used to measure individual differences in sustained attention. Many different stimuli have been used as response targets without consideration of their impact on task performance. Here, we compared CPT performance in typically developing adults and children to assess the role of stimulus processing…

Research purpose: The study analysed the relationship between sustainabilityperformance and FP in South African listed companies. Motivation for the study: Some South African listed companies acknowledge in their sustainability reports that there is a link between sustainability development and long-term shareholder value. This implies that FP is linked to sustainable development performance. This relationship has not been researched for South African listed companies and therefore needs to be investigated. Research design, approach and method: A similar research method was used as for an international study. Forty-five listed South African companies were selected as the sample. Their sustainable development reports were used for analysis. Data were analysed with the use of content and a canonical correlation analysis. Main findings: The results of the study revealed that an overall positive relationship exists between sustainabilityperformance and FP. Practical implications: South African companies that have a high involvement and focus on specific sustainable development initiatives that are integrated into overall sustainable development strategy can deliver improved FP for the organisation and deliver long-term value to its shareholders. Contribution: Six sustainable development aspects were found to be significantly correlated with improved FP and if incorporated into a company’s sustainable development strategy can lead to increased successes.

Full Text Available The results of the study of the dynamics of energy intensity of gross regional product of the Sverdlovsk region for the period 1996 - 2003 years. and projections for the period up to 2015. The principal possibility of growth performance of the regional economy, without a significant increase in the consumption of primary fuel.

This paper aims to provide a general view of the background and current state of building performance simulation, which has the potential to deliver, directly or indirectly, substantial benefits to building stakeholders and to the environment. However the building simulation community faces many

Full Text Available Sustainabilityperformance can be said to be an ability of an organization to remain productive over time and hold on to its potential for maintaining long-term profitability. Since the brewery sector is one of the most important and leading markets in the foodstuff industry of the Czech Republic, this study depicts the Czech breweries’ formal entry into sustainability reporting and performance. The purpose of this paper is to provide an efficiency level evaluation which would represent the level of corporate performance of Czech breweries. For this reason, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA is introduced. In order to apply it, we utilize a set of key performance indicators (KPIs based on two international standard frameworks: the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI and its GRI 4 guidelines, and the guideline KPIs for ESG 3.0, which was published by the DVFA Society. Four sustainability dimensions (economic, environmental, social and governance are covered, making it thus possible to adequately evaluate sustainabilityperformance in Czech breweries. The main output is not only the efficiency score of the company but also the input weights. These weights are used to determine the contribution of particular criteria to the breweries’ achieved score. According to the achieved efficiency results for Czech breweries, the percentage of women supervising the company does not affect the sustainabilityperformance.

To enhance close collaborations among scientists in three Asian countries (China, Japan and Korea), A3 foresight program on Plasma Physics was newly started from August 2012 under the auspice of JSPS (Japan), NRF (Korea) and NSFC (China). The main purpose of this project is to solve several key physics issues through joint experiments on three Asian advanced fully superconducting fusion devices (EAST in China, LHD in Japan and KSTAR in Korea) and other magnetic confinement devices to carry out multi-faceted and complementary physics researches. To summarize the progress and achievement in the first academic year under this A3 foresight program, this workshop was hosted by Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and held in Beijing during 19-24 May, 2013. Collaborated research and communication with other A3 programs and bilateral programs, as well as participation of young scientists were encouraged in this workshop. The topics include steady state sustainment of magnetic configurations, edge and divertor plasma control and confinement of alpha particles. This issue is the collection of 40 papers presented at the entitled meeting. All the 40 of the presented papers are indexed individually. (J.P.N.)

To enhance close collaborations among scientists in three Asian countries (China, Japan and Korea), A3 foresight program on Plasma Physics was launched from August 2012 under the auspice of JSPS (Japan), NRF (Korea) and NSFC (China). The main purpose of this project is to solve several key physics issues through joint experiments on three Asian advanced fully superconducting fusion devices (EAST in China, LHD in Japan and KSTAR in Korea) and other magnetic confinement devices to carry out multi-faceted and complementary physics researches. To summarize the progress and achievement in the second academic year under this A3 foresight program, the 6th workshop hosted by Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences was held in Nanning during 6-9 January, 2015. The research collaboration carried out by young scientists was also encouraged with participation of graduated students. The three topics of steady state sustainment of magnetic configurations, edge and divertor plasma control and confinement of alpha particles are mainly discussed in addition to relevant studies in small devices. This issue is the collection of 41 papers presented at the entitled meeting. The 39 of the presented papers are indexed individually. (J.P.N.)

Preliminary studies have been performed to design a device for nuclear waste transmutation and hydrogen generation based on a gas cooled pebble bed accelerator driven system, TADSEA (transmutation advanced device for sustainable energy application). In previous studies we have addressed the viability of an ADS Transmutation device that uses as fuel wastes from the existing LWR power plants, encapsulated in graphite in the form of pebble beds, being cooled by helium which enables high temperatures, in the order of 1200 K, to facilitate hydrogen generation from water either by high temperature electrolysis or by thermo chemical cycles. To design this device several configurations were studied, including several reactors thickness, to achieve the desired parameters, the transmutation of nuclear waste and the production of 100 MW. of thermal power. In this paper we are presenting new studies performed on deep burn in-core fuel management strategy for LWR waste. We analyze the fuel cycle on TADSEA device based on driver and transmutation fuel that were proposed for the General Atomic design of a gas turbine-modular helium reactor. We compare the transmutation results of the three fuel management strategies, using driven and transmutation, and standard LWR spend fuel, and present several parameters that describe the neutron performance of TADSEA nuclear core as the fuel and moderator temperature reactivity coefficients and transmutation chain. (author)

Preliminary studies have been performed to design a device for nuclear waste transmutation and hydrogen generation based on a gas cooled pebble bed accelerator driven system, TADSEA (transmutation advanced device for sustainable energy application). In previous studies we have addressed the viability of an ADS Transmutation device that uses as fuel wastes from the existing LWR power plants, encapsulated in graphite in the form of pebble beds, being cooled by helium which enables high temperatures, in the order of 1200 K, to facilitate hydrogen generation from water either by high temperature electrolysis or by thermo chemical cycles. To design this device several configurations were studied, including several reactors thickness, to achieve the desired parameters, the transmutation of nuclear waste and the production of 100 MW. of thermal power. In this paper we are presenting new studies performed on deep burn in-core fuel management strategy for LWR waste. We analyze the fuel cycle on TADSEA device based on driver and transmutation fuel that were proposed for the General Atomic design of a gas turbine-modular helium reactor. We compare the transmutation results of the three fuel management strategies, using driven and transmutation, and standard LWR spend fuel, and present several parameters that describe the neutron performance of TADSEA nuclear core as the fuel and moderator temperature reactivity coefficients and transmutation chain. (author)

Lecturer performance will affect the quality and carrying capacity of the sustainability of an organization, in this case the university. There are many models developed to measure the performance of teachers, but not much to discuss the influence of faculty performance itself towards sustainability of an organization. This study was conducted in…

This is a short, practical guide that will teach you everything you need to know to start writing highperformance Clojure code.This book is ideal for intermediate Clojure developers who are looking to get a good grip on how to achieve optimum performance. You should already have some experience with Clojure and it would help if you already know a little bit of Java. Knowledge of performance analysis and engineering is not required. For hands-on practice, you should have access to Clojure REPL with Leiningen.

Full Text Available The paper presents the last studies and researches accomplished in Cluj-Napoca related to highperformance concrete, high strength concrete and self compacting concrete. The purpose of this paper is to raid upon the advantages and inconveniences when a particular concrete type is used. Two concrete recipes are presented, namely for the concrete used in rigid pavement for roads and another one for self-compacting concrete.

The aim of this work was to investigate the foamability of high-performance polymers (polyethersulfone, polyphenylsulfone, polyetherimide and polyethylenenaphtalate). Two different methods have been used to prepare the foam samples: high temperature expansion and two-stage batch process. The effects of processing parameters (saturation time and pressure, foaming temperature) on the densities and microcellular structures of these foams were analyzed by using scanning electron microscopy

Inexpensive but highperformance systems have emerged progressively for basic and applied measurements in physical and analytical chemistry on one hand, and for on-line monitoring and leak detection in plants and facilities on the other. Salient features of the developments will be presented with specific examples

In this paper the main results obtained in the research program HighPerformance Concretes in the 90's are presented. This program was financed by the Danish government and was carried out in cooperation between The Technical University of Denmark, several private companies, and Aalborg University...... concretes, workability, ductility, and confinement problems....

. Consideration of all these factors is a precondition for a truly integrated practice and as this chapter demonstrates, innovative project delivery methods founded on the manufacturing of prefabricated buildings contribute to the production of highperformance homes that are cost effective to construct, energy...

Full Text Available This study aims to examine the relationship of sustainable innovation strategy and financial performance through the mediation environmental performance. The hypothesis in this study is sustainable innovation strategy affect the financial performance which is mediated by environmental performance. This study is quantitative research in the explanatory level. The population of this study is all the manufacturer companies in East Java. The data is collected through questionnaire. The unit of analysis is a business unit. The respondent of this study is the manager of a business unit manufacturing company in East Java. The results showed that the environmental performance mediates partially the relation between sustainable innovation strategy and financial performance.

The book presents the state of the art in high-performance computing and simulation on modern supercomputer architectures. It covers trends in hardware and software development in general, and the future of high-performance systems and heterogeneous architectures specifically. The application contributions cover computational fluid dynamics, material science, medical applications and climate research. Innovative fields like coupled multi-physics or multi-scale simulations are also discussed. All papers were chosen from presentations given at the 20th Workshop on Sustained Simulation Performance in December 2014 at the HLRS, University of Stuttgart, Germany, and the subsequent Workshop on Sustained Simulation Performance at Tohoku University in February 2015. .

The series will start with an historical introduction about what people saw as highperformance message communication in their time and how that developed to the now to day known "standard computer network communication". It will be followed by a far more technical part that uses the HighPerformance Computer Network standards of the 90's, with 1 Gbit/sec systems as introduction for an in depth explanation of the three new 10 Gbit/s network and interconnect technology standards that exist already or emerge. If necessary for a good understanding some sidesteps will be included to explain important protocols as well as some necessary details of concerned Wide Area Network (WAN) standards details including some basics of wavelength multiplexing (DWDM). Some remarks will be made concerning the rapid expanding applications of networked storage.

Full Text Available The improvement of managerial decisions, the identification and the implementation of strategic niches allow the achievement of some performance higher levels, thus ensuring the stability of the organization and the consolidation of the position on the market, which is occupied. The analysis of a company evolution can demonstrate the importance of the integration of the performance measurement system within the objectives of the enterprise on long term, in order to use it as a warning system when the results obtained diverge from the established trajectory. As shown in the synthesis of the selected company evolution, the performance of the company isn't resumed, in a simplistic way, to superior financial-accounting results, to the stable financial equilibrium, to the capacity to generate the cash-flow needed in order to function and to be extended in perspective, but it aims all the non-financial and financial aspects of its activity. In-depth, understanding the performance term, the criteria which have to fulfil a company in order to be efficient, open new opportunities for managers, challenge them to improve new strategies of action. Each criterion shall submit to management a new area of interest, whose good management depend the marketing and development of the company. Given our aim/goal to demonstrate through a practical case how achieving and maintaining performance may be associated with a state of equilibrium, we can summarize the performance stability of a company in two words ”remanent performance” . The remanence quality distinguishes a short-term strategy from a long term strategy, between performance achievement and maintenance of a company’s performance. Remanence expresses that side of performance, consequence of a strategic, continuous, adaptive and proactive process.

Full Text Available Questions have been raised on what role the knowledge provided by sustainability science actually plays in the transition to sustainability and what role it may play in the future. In this paper we investigate different approaches to sustainability transformation of food systems by analyzing the rationale behind transformative acts-the ground that the direct agents of change act upon- and how the type of rationale is connected to the role of research and how the agents of change are involved. To do this we employ Max Weber’s distinction between instrumental rationality and value-rationality in social action. In particular, we compare two different approaches to the role of research in sustainability transformation: (1 Performance-based approaches that measure performance and set up sustainability indicator targets and benchmarks to motivate the agents in the food system to change; (2 Values-based approaches that aim at communicating and mediating sustainability values to enable coordinated and cooperative action to transform the food system. We identify their respective strengths and weaknesses based on a cross-case analysis of four cases, and propose that the two approaches, like Weber’s two types of rationality, are complementary-because they are based on complementary observer stances—and that an optimal in-between approach therefore cannot be found. However, there are options for reflexive learning by observing one perspective-and its possible blind spots-from the vantage point of the other, so we suggest that new strategies for sustainability transformation can be found based on reflexive rationality as a third and distinct type of rationality.

Manufacturing industries are facing tough competition due to increasing raw material cost and depleting natural resources. There is great pressure on the industry to produce environmental friendly products using environmental friendly processes. To address these issues modern manufacturing industries are focusing on sustainable manufacturing. To develop more sustainable societies, industries need to better understand how to respond to environmental, economic and social challenges. This paper proposed some framework and tools that accelerate the transition towards a sustainable system. The developed framework will be beneficial for sustainability assessment comparing different plans alongside material properties, ultimately helping the manufacturing industries to reduce the carbon emissions and material waste, besides improving energy efficiency. It is expected that this would be highly beneficial for determination of environmental impact of a process at early design stages. Therefore, it would greatly help the manufacturing industries for selection of process plan based on sustainable indices. Overall objective of this paper would have good impact on reducing air emissions and protecting environment. We expect this work to contribute to the development of a standard reference methodology to help further sustainability in the manufacturing sector.

A mishmash of sustainability tactics does not add up to a sustainable strategy. Too often, companies launch sustainability programs with the hope that they'll be financially rewarded for doing good, even when those programs aren't relevant to their strategy and operations. They fail to understand the trade-offs between financial performance and performance on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. Improving one typically comes at a cost to the other. But it doesn't have to be this way. It's possible to simultaneously boost both financial and ESG performance-if you focus strategically on issues that are the most "material" to shareholder value, and you develop major innovations in products, processes, and business models that prioritize those concerns. Maps being developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, which rank the materiality of 43 issues for 88 industries, can provide valuable guidance. And broad initiatives undertaken by three companies-Natura, Dow Chemical, and CLP Group-demonstrate the kind of innovations that will push performance into new territory. Communicating the benefits to stakeholders is also critical, which is why integrated reports, which combine financial and ESG reporting, are now gaining in popularity.

This study aims to help fill the knowledge gap of Indonesian hotel managers by providing empirical evidence on how competitive strategy could play a role in improving hotel sustainableperformance (HSP. The Sustainable Balanced Scorecard (SBSC approach was used to measure HSP based on financial, customer, internal business process, learning and growth, and social and environmental perspectives. A mixed methods research approach was used to test the relationships among the above mentioned variables. Online survey and in-depth interviews were used to collect data. The quantitative data were analysed using Partial Least Square (PLS. The results revealed that competitive strategy, particularly in the form of differentiation, had a significant influence on HSP.

The exponentially increasing need for high speed data transfer is driven by big data, and cloud computing together with the needs of data intensive science, HighPerformance Computing (HPC), defense, the oil and gas industry etc. We report on the Zettar ZX software. This has been developed since 2013 to meet these growing needs by providing highperformance data transfer and encryption in a scalable, balanced, easy to deploy and use way while minimizing power and space utilization. In collaboration with several commercial vendors, Proofs of Concept (PoC) consisting of clusters have been put together using off-the- shelf components to test the ZX scalability and ability to balance services using multiple cores, and links. The PoCs are based on SSD flash storage that is managed by a parallel file system. Each cluster occupies 4 rack units. Using the PoCs, between clusters we have achieved almost 200Gbps memory to memory over two 100Gbps links, and 70Gbps parallel file to parallel file with encryption over a 5000 mile 100Gbps link.

Full Text Available Assuming that sustainable entrepreneurship leads to business performance, the present paper intends to investigate the standpoints of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises entrepreneurs on different facets. The emphasis is laid on the entrepreneurs’ approaches towards people, planet and profit and on their prioritization within business dynamics. The aforementioned dimensions are deemed important factors engendering business performance in terms of turnover, customer attraction and retention and market share. With a view to testing the advanced hypotheses, we employed a quantitative perspective relying on a questionnaire-based survey. As the results posited, the proposed model accounts for almost 50 percent of variance in business performance, whereas sustainable entrepreneurship approaches towards the people and profit dimensions have a significant positive influence on business performance.

Full Text Available In the context of the Chinese government’s strategy for sustainable development, the study of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM for enterprises has important practical significance. Drawing data from 172 Chinese firms, the model studied the moderating role of firm size on the SSCM practices and the sustainableperformance of the firms (economic, environmental, and social, using hierarchical regression analysis on SPSS 22.0. The results suggest that SSCM practices and firm size are positively related to the firm’s environmental and social performance. Firm size moderates the effect of SSCM practices on economic performance. Additionally, SSCM internal practices have a significant positive impact on the economic performance of large enterprises, but not so much on the economic performance of the Small and medium enterprises(SMEs. This paper proposes a comprehensive SSCM practice performance model that identifies firm size as a moderating role. Through research on the moderating effect of firm size, the implementation and recommendation of SSCM for different firm size are given.

In the past, companies used balanced scorecard to measure its performance. Now, balanced scorecard as a performance measurement tool is no longer sufficient because business has been affected by changes to the natural environment and developing social expectations. In order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, companies are beginning to address the risks and opportunities associated with these changes in their longer-term business planning. To turn risks into opportunities, companies...

This book highlights innovative solutions together with various techniques and methods that can help support the manufacturing sector to excel in economic, social, and environmental terms in networked business environments. The book also furthers understanding of sustainable manufacturing from the perspective of value creation in manufacturing networks, by capitalizing on the outcomes of the European ‘Sustainable Value Creation in Manufacturing Networks’ project. New dynamics and uncertainties in modern markets call for innovative solutions in the global manufacturing sector. While the manufacturing sector is traditionally driven by technology, it also requires other managerial and organizational solutions in terms of network governance, business models, sustainable solution development for products and services, performance management portals, etc., which can provide major competitive advantages for companies. At the same time, the manufacturing industry is subject to a change process, where business net...

The Consortium for HighPerformance Buildings (ChiPB) is an outgrowth of DOE'S Commercial Whole Buildings Roadmapping initiatives. It is a team-driven public/private partnership that seeks to enable and demonstrate the benefit of buildings that are designed, built and operated to be energy efficient, environmentally sustainable, superior quality, and cost effective.

The energy crisis and a greater awareness among the general public regarding the issue of climate change have, between them, led to a notable increase in the interest shown by governments in relation to the problem of environmental sustainability. An example has been the initiative taken by the President of France to set up a commission, known as the Sarkozy Commission, named after the President, bringing together renowned economists to study and propose forms of economic performance measurement related to social progress. This article aims to propose a methodology to establish a quantitative definition of sustainability structured on the principles of minimum and maximum entropy production, and, based on this, outline a way of organizing the many sources of, and kinds of energy, we have available to us in order of the intensity of their respective environmental impacts. Based on this, we could produce an Environmental Sustainability Index, linked to existing statistical indicators of human development, and thereby arrive at a Sustainable Human Development Index, which would be positively or negatively influenced by parameters linked to environmental sustainability and quality of life. In order to ensure that this index can produce practical results, the WTO (World Trade Organization) would have to establish a scale of increments, to be applied to export tariffs on products originating in countries with different indexes. (author)

Full Text Available This study examines employee involvement in organisational affairs as an important facet of social sustainability in the Nigerian banking sector, because providing good customer service requires committed employees rather than coerced labour. Data extracted through quantitative content analysis from the financial reports of fifteen commercial banks were analysed using descriptive statistics, Z test, one-way ANOVA, correlation and regression analysis techniques. e study found that employee involvement correlates positively and significantly with organisational performance; and banks differ in performance on the account of the level of employee involvement; firms with deeper level of employee involvement performed better than others with shallow level of employee involvement, thus stressing the relevance of employee involvement as an aspect of social sustainability business practices. Organisations are enjoined to involve their employees more to achieve better results; and embrace the modern philosophy of regarding employees as strategic resources that can be used to bolster core competence.

High-quality, wide-aperture optical access is usually required for the advanced laser diagnostics that can now make a wide variety of non-intrusive measurements of combustion processes. Specially processed and mounted sapphire windows are proposed to provide this optical access to extreme environment. Through surface treatments and proper thermal stress design, single crystal sapphire can be a mechanically equivalent replacement for high strength steel. A prototype sapphire window and mounting system have been developed in a successful NASA SBIR Phase 1 project. A large and reliable increase in sapphire design strength (as much as 10x) has been achieved, and the initial specifications necessary for these gains have been defined. Failure testing of small windows has conclusively demonstrated the increased sapphire strength, indicating that a nearly flawless surface polish is the primary cause of strengthening, while an unusual mounting arrangement also significantly contributes to a larger effective strength. Phase 2 work will complete specification and demonstration of these windows, and will fabricate a set for use at NASA. The enhanced capabilities of these highperformance sapphire windows will lead to many diagnostic capabilities not previously possible, as well as new applications for sapphire.

Full Text Available Lean manufacturing tools do not consider environmental and societal benefits. The conventional value stream mapping (VSM methodology examines the economics of a manufacturing line, most of which are in regards to time (cycle time, lead time, change-out time, etc.. Incorporating the capability to capture environmental and societal performance visually through VSMs will increase its usefulness as a tool that can be used to assess manufacturing operations from a sustainability perspective. A number of studies have addressed the extension of VSM to incorporate additional criteria. A vast majority of these efforts have focused on adding energy-related metrics to VSMs, while several other studies refer to ‘sustainable’ VSM by including environmental performance in conventional VSMs. This research has developed a method for VSM integrated with environment metric and social metric for ensuring sustainable manufacture. The proposed technique is capable of visualizing and evaluating manufacturing process performance from sustainability view point. The capability of proposed technique has been tested by an application study on furniture company. The study provides insights to practitioners to visualize process performance in economic, environment and social metric.

The work presented in this thesis covers three fundamental aspects of High Temperature Reactor (HTR) performance, namely fuel testing under irradiation for maximized safety and sustainability, fuel architecture for improved economy and sustainability, and a novel Balance of Plant concept to enable

This paper proposes a mechanism responsible for setting the sustainable level of muscle performance. Our contentions are that the sustainable work rate is determined (i) at the muscle level, (ii) by the ability to maintain ATP supply and (iii) by the products of glycolysis that may inhibit the signal for oxidative phosphorylation. We argue below that no single factor 'limits' sustainableperformance, but rather that the flux through and the interaction between glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation set the level of sustainable ATP supply. This argument is based on magnetic resonance spectroscopy measurements of the sources and sinks for energy in vivo in human muscle and rattlesnake tailshaker muscle during sustained contractions. These measurements show that glycolysis provides between 20% (human muscle) and 40% (tailshaker muscle) of the ATP supply during sustained contractions in these muscles. We cite evidence showing that this high glycolytic flux does not reflect an O(2) limitation or mitochondria operating at their capacity. Instead, this flux reflects a pathway independent of oxidative phosphorylation for ATP supply during aerobic exercise. The consequence of this high glycolytic flux is accumulation of H(+), which we argue inhibits the rise in the signal activating oxidative phosphorylation, thereby restricting oxidative ATP supply to below the oxidative capacity. Thus, both glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation play important roles in setting the highest steady-state ATP synthesis flux and thereby determine the sustainable level of work by exercising muscle.

Sustainable development, defined by the BrundtIand Commission as 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs', relates to a number of issues such as population, health, food, species and ecosystems, energy, industrial development, urbanization, societal issues and economy, and how these global challenges could be met within a long term strategy. It is not obvious how the principle may be applied to final disposal of radioactive waste, but the global scope of the principle suggests that no sector in society should be exempted from scrutinizing its practices in the light of the challenge presented by sustainable development. Waste management, as pointed out by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, ICRP, cannot be seen as a free standing practice in need of its own justification. The produced waste cannot be seen separately from the other components of nuclear production. However, the existence of very long-lived radioactive nuclei in the spent fuel warrants a careful examination of this subpractice. Health based post-closure criteria or standards for long-lived waste, usually make use of the concept of partitioning dose limit. ICRP recommends that individuals in the public do not receive a yearly dose in excess of 1 mSv as a result of releases in connection with activities involving the use of ionising radiation, and that any single facility does not generate a dose burden to individuals in excess of a fraction of this value. For an operating facility, this fraction is normally at least a factor of three. By definition, operational changes are not possible for a closed repository. It follows from this that the partitioning has another function. One interpretation is that it can allow for the simultaneous use and burdens of future generation's activities. Both the Swedish and the proposed US criteria and from EPA and NRC, as well as standards from

Sustainable development, defined by the BrundtIand Commission as 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs', relates to a number of issues such as population, health, food, species and ecosystems, energy, industrial development, urbanization, societal issues and economy, and how these global challenges could be met within a long term strategy. It is not obvious how the principle may be applied to final disposal of radioactive waste, but the global scope of the principle suggests that no sector in society should be exempted from scrutinizing its practices in the light of the challenge presented by sustainable development. Waste management, as pointed out by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, ICRP, cannot be seen as a free standing practice in need of its own justification. The produced waste cannot be seen separately from the other components of nuclear production. However, the existence of very long-lived radioactive nuclei in the spent fuel warrants a careful examination of this subpractice. Health based post-closure criteria or standards for long-lived waste, usually make use of the concept of partitioning dose limit. ICRP recommends that individuals in the public do not receive a yearly dose in excess of 1 mSv as a result of releases in connection with activities involving the use of ionising radiation, and that any single facility does not generate a dose burden to individuals in excess of a fraction of this value. For an operating facility, this fraction is normally at least a factor of three. By definition, operational changes are not possible for a closed repository. It follows from this that the partitioning has another function. One interpretation is that it can allow for the simultaneous use and burdens of future generation's activities. Both the Swedish and the proposed US criteria and from EPA and NRC, as well as standards from Canada, UK and

Full Text Available Performance evaluations are a critical tool in promoting the sustainability of tourist destinations. The literature shows a lack of consensus on basic terminology and definitions of destination performance. While research focuses on business efficiency, areas such as development effectiveness, social equality, and environmental integrity are still not well understood, even though these are salient elements of sustainable development. This paper provides a framework for evaluating destination performance under the 4E rubric of economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and environmental quality, which reflects a more holistic and effective destination performance. The information entropy weight method and a multi-factor comprehensive evaluation model are developed and applied to an international destination, Zhangjiajie, China, which was selected as a case study to test the framework developed. Results show that the economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and environmental quality aspects should be considered when evaluating tourism development performance. The empirical analysis shows that based on these criteria, Zhangjiajie’s destination performance improved measurably during the test period from 2005 to 2009. The results indicate that significant events, natural disasters, and financial crises influence performance most.

The objective to set transport on a course towards sustainability is a complex and long term aspiration that is likely to meet, and have already met, several market and governance failures. While many market failures can be countered through careful design of appropriate policy instruments......, the governance failures need a ‘second order’ approach; an approach that involves the re-design of processes and institutional frameworks for anticipation, decision making, implementation, and learning; in short a framework for performance governance. According to the policy scientists Bouckaert and Halligan......, ‘Performance governance’ is what they call the most advanced form of public performance management. In simple models a government collects only sporadic information on performance to satisfy internal reporting. In the performance governance model, performance management is systematic, continuous...

Full Text Available We propose key performance indicators (KPIs based on the Gross Social Feel-Good Index to evaluate a smart sustainable city and report the results of a field trial in a city located almost at the center of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. We developed KPIs based on the following concepts: (1. The triple bottom line is the basic evaluation criteria; (2. The same unit is used for every evaluation criterion; (3. The KPIs can be used to assess a diverse range of smart sustainable cities with different goals. With the proposed KPIs of smart sustainable cities, indicators are divided into four layers for simplicity: the triple bottom line and “satisfaction” lie in the first layer. Since the notion of “society” is broad, it is further split into “safety”, “health”, and “comfort”, which are positioned in the second layer. The third layer includes indicators such as “information security” and “ubiquitous society” from the perspective of information communication technology (ICT. We conducted a trial evaluation by applying the proposed KPIs to individual ICT solutions of “Internet Protocol announcements”, “Wi-Fi around the station” and “information transmission and control” which have already been installed in a smart sustainable city.

This book is for programmers and developers who want to improve the performance of their R programs by making them run faster with large data sets or who are trying to solve a pesky performance problem.

Full Text Available Orientation: Poor school performance is a major problem in South Africa. To date the success of intervention strategies that were aimed at turning the situation around in dysfunctional schools have been short lived and were not sustainable. Research purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the reasons for the failure of an intervention programme in a school that managed to perform well for the time when it received assistance. Motivation: It is essential to determine the reasons for this continuous failure of school intervention programmes if we want to address the serious problems experienced by the South African education system. Research design, approach and method: In this study, a qualitative research approach within a case-study design was used. Main findings: The main reasons for the inability of the school to sustain its performance were not internal (within the school itself but external (within the education system. Practical and managerial implications: The findings of this study highlight the importance of external leadership and support by the districts and the Department of Education in changing the poor performance of schools at large. Main contribution: Contrary to literature emphasising the lack of leadership at school level as the main problem of poor school performance, this study found that the problem was mainly due to a lack of leadership at departmental level.

Full Text Available Fashion supply chain members now search for trade-offs between sustainable investment and the related incentives, such as savings on environmental taxes and gains in incremental demands. To evaluate the economic and environmental performance of sustainable investment from a power perspective, we develop an analytical model to study a two-echelon sustainable supply chain consisting of one retailer and one manufacturer with three different power structures. We derive the optimal solutions for various cases associated with different supply chain power structures and sustainable investors. Though it is beneficial for both the manufacturer and retailer to make sustainable investment, they often utilize high power to gain economic benefit with less sustainable investment. Interestingly, the follower with less supply chain power has more incentive to make a sustainable effort to achieve a higher profit. The optimal amount of sustainable investment in the apparel manufacturer investment case is greater than that in the retailer investment case in most scenarios.

Research spanning nearly 20 years has provided considerable empirical evidence for relationships between HighPerformance Work Practices (HPWPs) and various measures of performance including increased productivity, improved customer service, and reduced turnover. What stands out from......, and Africa to examine these various questions relating to the HPWP-innovation-performance relationship. Each paper discusses a practice that has been identified in HPWP literature and potential variables that can facilitate or hinder the effects of these practices of innovation- and performance...

An exciting, easy-to-follow guide illustrating the techniques to boost the performance of Python code, and their applications with plenty of hands-on examples.If you are a programmer who likes the power and simplicity of Python and would like to use this language for performance-critical applications, this book is ideal for you. All that is required is a basic knowledge of the Python programming language. The book will cover basic and advanced topics so will be great for you whether you are a new or a seasoned Python developer.

Full Text Available This paper is focused on identifying possible relations between companies’ performance and their board structure and managerial team after the recent world financial crisis, in an attempt to identify possible ways to support corporate sustainable development. Companies with board and management team gender diversity tend to score higher in terms of ROA and ROS than companies where men are in charge. Women in managerial positions in large companies tend to relate better with customers and help sales improvement, but in companies that are old and big the women participation in the process of strategic decision making is not particularly encouraged.

Full Text Available This paper studies linear systems under sustained additive random perturbations. The stable operating point of an electric power system is replaced by an attracting stationary solution if the system is subjected to (small random additive perturbations. The invariant distribution of this stationary solution gives rise to several performance indices that measure how well the system copes with the randomness. These indices are introduced, showing how they can be used for the optimal tuning of system parameters in the presence of noise. Results on a four-generator two-area system are presented and discussed.

Full Text Available This paper explores the performance of a novel capability assessment tool, developed to identify capability gaps and associated training and development requirements across the supply chain for environmentally-sustainable manufacturing. The tool was developed to assess 170 capabilities that have been clustered with respect to key areas of concern such as managing energy, water, material resources, carbon emissions and waste as well as environmental management practices for sustainability. Two independent expert teams used the tool to assess a sample group of five first and second tier sports apparel and footwear suppliers within the supply chain of a global sporting goods manufacturer in Asia. The paper addresses the reliability and robustness of the developed assessment method by formulating the expected links between the assessment results. The management practices of the participating suppliers were shown to be closely connected to their performance in managing their resources and emissions. The companies’ initiatives in implementing energy efficiency measures were found to be generally related to their performance in carbon emissions management. The suppliers were also asked to undertake a self-assessment by using a short questionnaire. The large gap between the comprehensive assessment and these in-house self-assessments revealed the suppliers’ misconceptions about their capabilities.

Ge is a very promising material as future channel materials for nanoscale MOSFETs due to its high mobility and thus a higher source injection velocity, which translates into higher drive current and smaller gate delay. However, for Ge to become main-stream, surface passivation and heterogeneous integration of crystalline Ge layers on Si must be achieved. We have demonstrated growth of fully relaxed smooth single crystal Ge layers on Si using a novel multi-step growth and hydrogen anneal process without any graded buffer SiGe layer. Surface passivation of Ge has been achieved with its native oxynitride (GeO {sub x}N {sub y} ) and high-permittivity (high-k) metal oxides of Al, Zr and Hf. High mobility MOSFETs have been demonstrated in bulk Ge with high-k gate dielectrics and metal gates. However, due to their smaller bandgap and higher dielectric constant, most high mobility materials suffer from large band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) leakage currents and worse short channel effects. We present novel, Si and Ge based heterostructure MOSFETs, which can significantly reduce the BTBT leakage currents while retaining high channel mobility, making them suitable for scaling into the sub-15 nm regime. Through full band Monte-Carlo, Poisson-Schrodinger and detailed BTBT simulations we show a dramatic reduction in BTBT and excellent electrostatic control of the channel, while maintaining very high drive currents in these highly scaled heterostructure DGFETs. Heterostructure MOSFETs with varying strained-Ge or SiGe thickness, Si cap thickness and Ge percentage were fabricated on bulk Si and SOI substrates. The ultra-thin ({approx}2 nm) strained-Ge channel heterostructure MOSFETs exhibited >4x mobility enhancements over bulk Si devices and >10x BTBT reduction over surface channel strained SiGe devices.

Ge is a very promising material as future channel materials for nanoscale MOSFETs due to its high mobility and thus a higher source injection velocity, which translates into higher drive current and smaller gate delay. However, for Ge to become main-stream, surface passivation and heterogeneous integration of crystalline Ge layers on Si must be achieved. We have demonstrated growth of fully relaxed smooth single crystal Ge layers on Si using a novel multi-step growth and hydrogen anneal process without any graded buffer SiGe layer. Surface passivation of Ge has been achieved with its native oxynitride (GeO x N y ) and high-permittivity (high-k) metal oxides of Al, Zr and Hf. High mobility MOSFETs have been demonstrated in bulk Ge with high-k gate dielectrics and metal gates. However, due to their smaller bandgap and higher dielectric constant, most high mobility materials suffer from large band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) leakage currents and worse short channel effects. We present novel, Si and Ge based heterostructure MOSFETs, which can significantly reduce the BTBT leakage currents while retaining high channel mobility, making them suitable for scaling into the sub-15 nm regime. Through full band Monte-Carlo, Poisson-Schrodinger and detailed BTBT simulations we show a dramatic reduction in BTBT and excellent electrostatic control of the channel, while maintaining very high drive currents in these highly scaled heterostructure DGFETs. Heterostructure MOSFETs with varying strained-Ge or SiGe thickness, Si cap thickness and Ge percentage were fabricated on bulk Si and SOI substrates. The ultra-thin (∼2 nm) strained-Ge channel heterostructure MOSFETs exhibited >4x mobility enhancements over bulk Si devices and >10x BTBT reduction over surface channel strained SiGe devices

Full Text Available Eco-aware customers and stakeholders are demanding for a measurement that links environmental performance with other business operations. To bridge this seemingly measurement gap, this paper suggests ‘Eco-Ratio Analysis’ and proposes an approach for conducting eco-ratio analysis. It is argued that since accounting ratios function as a tool for evaluating corporate financial viability by management and investors, eco-ratio analysis should be brought to the fore to provide a succinct measurement about the linkage between environmental performance and conventional business performance. It is hoped that this suggestion will usher in a nuance debate and approach in the teaching, research and practice of environmental management and sustainability accounting

System administrators, developers, and engineers looking for ways to achieve maximum performance from NGINX will find this book beneficial. If you are looking for solutions such as how to handle more users from the same system or load your website pages faster, then this is the book for you.

This research reviews five studies that evaluate national environmental sustainability with composite indices; performs uncertainty and sensitivity analyses of techniques for building a composite index; completes principal components factor analysis to help build subindices measuring waste and pollution, sustainable energy, sustainable food, nature conservation, and sustainable cities (Due to its current importance, the greenhouse gases (GHG) indicator is included individually as another poli...

The objective of the highperformance light water reactor (HPLWR) project is to assess the merit and economic feasibility of a high efficiency LWR operating at thermodynamically supercritical regime. An efficiency of approximately 44% is expected. To accomplish this objective, a highly qualified team of European research institutes and industrial partners together with the University of Tokyo is assessing the major issues pertaining to a new reactor concept, under the co-sponsorship of the European Commission. The assessment has emphasized the recent advancement achieved in this area by Japan. Additionally, it accounts for advanced European reactor design requirements, recent improvements, practical design aspects, availability of plant components and the availability of high temperature materials. The final objective of this project is to reach a conclusion on the potential of the HPLWR to help sustain the nuclear option, by supplying competitively priced electricity, as well as to continue the nuclear competence in LWR technology. The following is a brief summary of the main project achievements:-A state-of-the-art review of supercritical water-cooled reactors has been performed for the HPLWR project.-Extensive studies have been performed in the last 10 years by the University of Tokyo. Therefore, a 'reference design', developed by the University of Tokyo, was selected in order to assess the available technological tools (i.e. computer codes, analyses, advanced materials, water chemistry, etc.). Design data and results of the analysis were supplied by the University of Tokyo. A benchmark problem, based on the 'reference design' was defined for neutronics calculations and several partners of the HPLWR project carried out independent analyses. The results of these analyses, which in addition help to 'calibrate' the codes, have guided the assessment of the core and the design of an improved HPLWR fuel assembly. Preliminary selection was made for the HPLWR scale

As our global culture encounters accelerating rates of resource depletion, environmental degradation, and societal inequality, it increasingly needs tools to rate building systems by environmental and socioeconomic criteria. By investigating light frame structural systems based on principles of ecological design, it is possible to not only identify the structures' potential impacts on the health of their site and larger community, but also to establish a framework of performance criteria for comparatively evaluating a variety of construction technologies. This paper summarizes the development and application of such a framework, based upon the ecosystems and culture of the Pacific Northwest's Cascadia Bioregion. The framework has been comparatively applied to solid-sawn lumber, trusses, and composite wood I-joists. These three framing technologies together represent traditional, contemporary, and progressive structural systems. Their individual and collective performance, based upon the application of the hypothesized criteria, offer insights into what might be a more ideal framing system of the sustainable future

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of ecology-based performance measures as a way of augmenting the Balanced Scorecard approach to organizational performance measurement. The Balanced Scorecard, as proposed by Kaplan and Norton, focuses on four primary dimensions; financial, internal-business-process, customer, and learning and growth perspectives. Recently, many 'green' organizational theorists have developed the concept of "Ecologically Sustainable Organizations" or ESOs, a concept rooted in open systems theory. The ESO is called upon to consider resource use and conservation as a strategy for long-term viability. This paper asserts that in order to achieve ESO status, an organization must not only measure but also reward resource conservation measures. Only by adding a fifth perspective for ecological dimensions will the entity be truly motivated toward ESO status.

Full Text Available The sustainable organizational change has an ever increasing importance, leading to the rethinking of the management and systems of performance measurement and monitoring within the companies. As a reaction to current economic phenomena, in the first section of this work we tried to bring out the need for using the couple Balanced Scorecard - Corporate Social Responsibility by companies. Thus, companies involved in sustainable actions must grant a great importance to the impact of environmental, social and economic factors in providing added value, informing the interested parties and reflecting the reporting of sustainableperformance. As a consequence, in the second part of the work we present the Sustainability Balanced Scorecard for the implementation of efficient strategies which cumulate the economic, social and environmental aspects as integrating system for sustainableperformance and as a new challenge for organizational change. The key performance indicators included in the Sustainability Balanced Scorecard are quantified by the indicators of sustainable development, based on which the empirical research described in the third section of the work was achieved. Through the quantitative analysis of the economic and ecological indicators (Gross Domestic Product per capita, respective, Environmental Performance Index in correlation with the social indicator (Global Competitive Index, we conclude that the implementation of green strategies by companies leads to sustainable economic growth.

In concert with this theme this paper briefly outlines how Grumman, over the past 4 years, has evolved from a company that designed and fabricated a Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) accelerator from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) physics and specifications to a company who, as prime contractor, is designing, fabricating, assembling and commissioning the US Army Strategic Defense Commands (USA SDC) Continuous Wave Deuterium Demonstrator (CWDD) accelerator as a turn-key operation. In the case of the RFQ, LANL scientists performed the physics analysis, established the specifications supported Grumman on the mechanical design, conducted the RFQ tuning and tested the RFQ at their laboratory. For the CWDD Program Grumman has the responsibility for the physics and engineering designs, assembly, testing and commissioning albeit with the support of consultants from LANL, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) and Brookhaven National laboratory. In addition, Culham Laboratory and LANL are team members on CWDD. LANL scientists have reviewed the physics design as well as a USA SDC review board. 9 figs

Full Text Available Despite Waqf institutions being perceived as the social mechanism to facilitate equitable economic growth and progress for the ummah, getting its concept accepted and implemented by business organizations remains a challenge. A significant number of waqf institutions are also faced with recurring issues such as underdeveloped waqf properties, unproductive nature of the assets, inability to generate self-income, loose documenting system and mismanagement. Therefore, this paper aims to shed light on the drivers of the successful practice of corporate waqf of a selected waqf institution in Malaysia. Specifically, this paper examines the critical factors that continuously drive the performance of the corporate waqf institution. The framework for the case study was premised upon the tawhidic concept which stemmed from the Quran and Sunnah. In the case study, data were drawn from interviews with key informants, participant observations and reviews of documents. Data collected from multiple sources of evidence enabled the triangulation of data. The situation has enhanced the validity and reliability of the findings. NVivo software was used to code and analyze the data as well as to search for patterns and emerging themes. The results revealed that the case company successfully engaged in waqf practice as well as, sustain its performance. The essential criteria in managing and administering waqf funds at the case company can be linked to the jihad attitude, healthy mindset, an in-depth knowledge of Islamic and waqf fundamentals and strategic leadership. The findings put forth to advance the literature on corporate waqf besides provide insights for policymakers on the drivers for an effective and efficient management of waqf funds and sustainable corporate waqf performance.

Collaboration between firms is important to stimulate the transition to a more sustainable society. This special volume shows that collaboration is indeed one of the preferred forms of governance to manage relations between firms in a sustainability context. Collaboration enhances sustainable

Sustainable development requires radical and systemic innovations. Such innovations can be more effectively created and studied when building on the concept of business models. This concept provides firms with a holistic framework to envision and implement sustainable innovations. For researchers,

Sustainable maintenance is a new challenge for manufacturing companies to realize sustainable development. In this paper, an interpretive structural model is developed to evaluate sustainable maintenance in the rubber industry. The initial key performance indicators (KPIs) is identified and derived from literature and then validated by academic and industry experts. As a result, three factors of economic, social, and environmental dividing into a total of thirteen indicators are proposed as the KPIs for sustainable maintenance evaluation in rubber industry. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology is applied to develop a network structure model of the KPIs consisting of three levels. The results show the economic factor is regarded as the basic factor, the social factor as the intermediate factor, while the environmental factor indicated to be the leading factor. Two indicators of social factor i.e. labor relationship, and training and education have both high driver and dependence power, thus categorized as the unstable indicators which need further attention. All the indicators of environmental factor and one indicator of social factor are indicated as the most influencing indicator. The interpretive structural model hoped can aid the rubber companies in evaluating sustainable maintenance performance.

E3: North Carolina advances performance in sustainability and workforce development strategies for the state's manufacturers. The initiative helps communities and manufacturers address energy and sustainability challenges by leveraging expertise.

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to evaluate 2 alternative breeding systems that differ from the current system in terms of reproduction rhythm, age of females at first insemination and the age of kits at weaning and at slaughter. We measured the performance of 332 females and their offspring over 4 consecutive cycles, as well as the sustainability of the systems. We compared an intensive (group I: reproduction rhythm [RR]=35 d; first insemination [AI1]=20.6 wk of age; weaning age [WA]=32 d; slaughter age [WS]=63 d an extensive (group E: RR=49 d; AI1=16.6 wk; WA=30 d; WS=70 d and a semi-intensive system (group S: RR=42 d; AI1=19.6 wk; WA=35 d; WS=70 d considered as the control system. Sustainability was evaluated using a multicriteria assessment method that takes 14 economic, environmental and social criteria into account, for which 3 to 5 indicators were expressed as the relative score [–1; –0.5; 0; +0.5; +1] for alternative systems compared to the control system. The productivity measured at 28 d (3.5, 4.2 and 4.6 kg/AI, for groups I, S and E, respectively, at 63 d post-partum (30, 38 and 42 kg/female for 4 cycles, respectively, and the total body energy measured 3 d after the 1st and at the 4th insemination (45.4, 46.8 and 49.5 MJ, respectively, were significantly increased when the reproductive rhythm decreased (P<0.001. Before and after weaning, kit mortality decreased when the reproduction rhythm decreased (11.4, 7.3, and 1.9% and 18.3, 15.3 and 10.6% for groups I, S and E, respectively, P<0.05. Carcass quality (weight and dressing percentage was lower in I than in the S and E groups (P<0.001. On this basis, the yearly productivity per doe at weaning could be estimated at 79, 83, and 78 kg for groups I, S and E, respectively. Consequently, the productivity per reproductive cycle increases with the extensification of the breeding system. Nevertheless, compared with the current French system (S, simultaneous changes in several breeding

This workshop was the first major activity in developing a strategic plan for high-performance networking in the Office of Science. Held August 13 through 15, 2002, it brought together a selection of end users, especially representing the emerging, high-visibility initiatives, and network visionaries to identify opportunities and begin defining the path forward.

Full Text Available The idea of sustainable management has recently gained growing attention in the agribusiness sector. This is mainly due to a widespread discontent with the industrialization of agricultural production and food processing and growing public pressure on agribusiness firms to implement more sustainable management practices. In this paper we present the results of an explorative empirical study of sustainability management in German agribusiness firms. The study shows that agribusiness firms have developed a broad understanding of sustainability management and perceive a multi-facetted spectrum of societal demands they have to meet. The most important arguments for implementing more sustainable management practices are that companies have to make sure that they are trusted by society in the long run and that the perception of a company by external stakeholders has become more and more important. The companies surveyed know quite a number of sustainability programmes and standards, but the number of companies that actually participate in these initiatives is much smaller. Nonetheless, the majority of the respondents feels that their company is more successful with regard to sustainability management than industry average.

Sustainability is fundamental to the Department of Energy’s research mission and operations as reflected in the Department’s Strategic Plan. Our overarching mission is to discover the solutions to power and secure America’s future.

RavenDB HighPerformance is comprehensive yet concise tutorial that developers can use to.This book is for developers & software architects who are designing systems in order to achieve highperformance right from the start. A basic understanding of RavenDB is recommended, but not required. While the book focuses on advanced topics, it does not assume that the reader has a great deal of prior knowledge of working with RavenDB.

Full Text Available The purpose of this article is to explore the role of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs in sustainable supply chains. I argue that MSIs are needed to help establish and institutionalize the natural and social thresholds in which a sustainable supply chain must operate. While a multitude of MSIs relevant to supply chains already exist, they do not yet adequately address sustainability thresholds. Building on theory and literature, I elaborate on four interrelated roles for MSIs in this area: (1 providing learning platforms, (2 developing standards, (3 developing enforcement mechanisms, and (4 issuing labels and certifications. All four roles emphasize the need for supply chains to operate within the thresholds set by nature and society. Staying within thresholds is what distinguishes between sustainable and unsustainable supply chains. The four roles form part of a broader conceptual framework outlining a way forward for MSIs in sustainable supply chains. Different MSIs could address one or more of these roles. I argue that all MSIs must be developed with special attention to their input and output legitimacy. Stakeholders from both within and beyond the supply chain must be involved in developing and implementing a MSI for it to be viewed as legitimate. I note that the conceptual framework presented here is a starting point. It would benefit from further testing and refinement. For example, future work could add further specificity to the four roles I discuss. Future research could also focus on integrating economic thresholds for sustainable supply chains into the framework.

Notes prepared for the DTU course 49421 "HighPerformance Operating Systems". The notes deal with quantitative and qualitative techniques for use in the design and evaluation of operating systems in computer systems for which performance is an important parameter, such as real-time applications......, communication systems and multimedia systems....

This paper reports about a research in progress focusing on the impact of green information systems on sustainable supply chain performance. Green information systems, supply chains and their relation to sustainability and performance measurement are explained. The preliminary literature review resulted in a draft conceptual framework where sustainable supply chain measures focusing on economic, environmental and social aspects are combined with traditional supply chain performance measures o...

Sustainable transportation can be viewed as the provision of safe, effective, and efficient : access and mobility into the future while considering economic, social, and environmental : needs. For the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to ass...

Questions have been raised on what role the knowledge provided by sustainability science actually plays in the transition to sustainability and what role it may play in the future. In this paper we investigate different approaches to sustainability transformation of food systems by analyzing......-based approaches that aim at communicating and mediating sustainability values to enable coordinated and cooperative action to transform the food system. We identify their respective strengths and weaknesses based on a cross-case analysis of four cases, and propose that the two approaches, likeWeber's two types...... of rationality, are complementary-because they are based on complementary observer stances-and that an optimal in-between approach therefore cannot be found. However, there are options for reflexive learning by observing one perspective-and its possible blind spots-from the vantage point of the other, so we...

Sustainable manufacturing is regarded as the most complex manufacturing paradigm to date as it holds the widest scope of requirements. In addition, its three major pillars of economic, environment and society though distinct, have some overlapping among each of its elements. Even though the concept of sustainability is not new, the development of the performance indicator still needs a lot of improvement due to its multifaceted nature, which requires integrated approach to solve the problem. This paper proposed the best combination of criteria en route a robust sustainable manufacturing performance indicator formation via Analytic Network Process (ANP). The integrated lean, green and sustainable ANP model can be used to comprehend the complex decision system of the sustainability assessment. The finding shows that green manufacturing is more sustainable than lean manufacturing. It also illustrates that procurement practice is the most important criteria in the sustainable manufacturing performance indicator.

This book presents the state-of-the-art in supercomputer simulation. It includes the latest findings from leading researchers using systems from the HighPerformance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) in 2015. The reports cover all fields of computational science and engineering ranging from CFD to computational physics and from chemistry to computer science with a special emphasis on industrially relevant applications. Presenting findings of one of Europe’s leading systems, this volume covers a wide variety of applications that deliver a high level of sustainedperformance. The book covers the main methods in high-performance computing. Its outstanding results in achieving the best performance for production codes are of particular interest for both scientists and engineers. The book comes with a wealth of color illustrations and tables of results.

This book presents the state-of-the-art in supercomputer simulation. It includes the latest findings from leading researchers using systems from the HighPerformance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) in 2017. The reports cover all fields of computational science and engineering ranging from CFD to computational physics and from chemistry to computer science with a special emphasis on industrially relevant applications. Presenting findings of one of Europe’s leading systems, this volume covers a wide variety of applications that deliver a high level of sustainedperformance.The book covers the main methods in high-performance computing. Its outstanding results in achieving the best performance for production codes are of particular interest for both scientists and engineers. The book comes with a wealth of color illustrations and tables of results.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is both the largest science and energy laboratory in the US Department of Energy (DOE) complex and one of the oldest national laboratories still operating at its original site. ORNL implemented an aggressive modernization program in 2000, providing modern, energy-efficient facilities that help to support the growth of important national scientific missions while faced with the unique and challenging opportunity to integrate sustainability into legacy assets. ORNL is committed to leveraging the outcomes of DOE-sponsored research programs to maximize the efficient use of energy and natural resources across a diverse campus. ORNL leadership in conjunction with the Sustainable Campus Initiative (SCI) maintains a commitment to the integration of technical innovations into new and existing facilities, systems, and processes with a comprehensive approach to achieving DOE directives and the new Executive Order 13693. Energy efficiency, greenhouse gas reductions, climate change resiliency, and other pursuits toward integrated sustainability factor in all we do. ORNL continues to pursue and deploy innovative solutions and initiatives to advance regional, national, and worldwide sustainability and continues to transform its culture and engage employees in supporting sustainability at work, at home, and in the community.

Sustaininghighperformance in a tokamak requires controlling many equilibrium shape and profile characteristics simultaneously with high accuracy and reliability, while suppressing a variety of MHD instabilities. Integrated plasma control, the process of designing high-performance tokamak controllers based on validated system response models and confirming their performance in detailed simulations, provides a systematic method for achieving and ensuring good control performance. For present-day devices, this approach can greatly reduce the need for machine time traditionally dedicated to control optimization, and can allow determination of high-reliability controllers prior to ever producing the target equilibrium experimentally. A full set of tools needed for this approach has recently been completed and applied to present-day devices including DIII-D, NSTX and MAST. This approach has proven essential in the design of several next-generation devices including KSTAR, EAST, JT-60SC, and ITER. We describe the method, results of design and simulation tool development, and recent research producing novel approaches to equilibrium and MHD control in DIII-D. (author)

Learning from highperformance projects is crucial for software process improvement. Therefore, we need to identify outstanding projects that may serve as role models. It is common to measure productivity as an indicator of performance. It is vital that productivity measurements deal correctly with variable returns to scale and multivariate data. Software projects generally exhibit variable returns to scale, and the output from ERP projects is multivariate. We propose to use Data Envelopment ...

Full Text Available This study investigates the influence of employee fitness programs on organizational sustainabilityperformance from the perspective of organizational support as perceived by employees. Organizational sustainabilityperformance was specified as a second-order factor, which was affected by three first-order factors: financial performance, social performance, and environmental performance. A snowball sampling method was employed to conduct an online survey of working adults in Shanghai to test the proposed hypotheses. Results show that perceived organizational support toward employee fitness has a positive and significant effect on organizational sustainabilityperformance, and the positive effect is mediated by job satisfaction and organizational commitment. This study also provides theoretical and managerial implications.

Various studies have investigated drivers of corporate sustainability, however only a few attempts have been made to link corporate sustainability and economic performance of enterprises by measuring labour productivity in new European Union member states that have transitioned from socialism. This paper analyses the link between corporate sustainability and economic performance, by simultaneously using the following control variables: human capital, the innovation process, leadership, and Eu...

The realization of process solutions for a sustainable bioeconomy depends on the efficient processing of biomass. High-gravity technology is one important alternative to realizing such solutions. The aims of this work were to expand the knowledge-base on lignocellulosic bioconversion processes...... at high solids content, to advance the current technologies for production of second-generation liquid biofuels, to evaluate the environmental impact of the proposed process by using life cycle assessment (LCA), and to develop and present a technically, economically, and environmentally sound process....... Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining published by Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd....

Full Text Available Environmental protection firms need to improve their ability to access financing while maintaining good economic performance under mounting environmental pressures. After the integration of trade-off and stakeholder theories, we have constructed a number of mathematical models to investigate the relationship among financing decisions, environmental performance (EP, and economic performance. Unbalanced panel data from environmental protection companies listed on Chinese stock exchanges from 2007 to 2016 were collected and analyzed. Our results have confirmed that debt financing has a significant impact on short- and long-term economic performance. Firms prefer long-term debt over short-term debt to improve their financial sustainability. Internal financing is positively related to performance because the cost of financing is lower. Environmental performance can cause extra financial burden in the short run, but will improve stakeholder relations and profitability in the long run. Our study suggests that environmental performance affects the relationship between financing decisions and economic performance. When EP initiatives are high, debt financing has a greater negative influence on short-term performance, and the effect on long-term performance is mitigated. High EP also reduces the impact of internal financing on performance.

The Internationally Standardized Reporting Checklist on the Sustainable Development Performance of Uranium Mining and Processing Sites: • A mutual and beneficial work between a core group of uranium miners and nuclear utilities; • An approach based on an long term experience, international policies and sustainable development principles; • A process to optimize the reporting mechanism, tools and efforts; • 11 sections focused on the main sustainable development subject matters known at an operational and headquarter level. The WNA will make available the sustainable development checklist for member utilities and uranium suppliers. Utilities and suppliers are encouraged to use the checklist for sustainable development verification.

The University of Tennessee (UTK) and University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) partnership supported the three main thrusts of the SUPER project---performance, energy, and resilience. The UTK-UTEP effort thus helped advance the main goal of SUPER, which was to ensure that DOE's computational scientists can successfully exploit the emerging generation of highperformance computing (HPC) systems. This goal is being met by providing application scientists with strategies and tools to productively maximize performance, conserve energy, and attain resilience. The primary vehicle through which UTK provided performance measurement support to SUPER and the larger HPC community is the Performance Application Programming Interface (PAPI). PAPI is an ongoing project that provides a consistent interface and methodology for collecting hardware performance information from various hardware and software components, including most major CPUs, GPUs and accelerators, interconnects, I/O systems, and power interfaces, as well as virtual cloud environments. The PAPI software is widely used for performance modeling of scientific and engineering applications---for example, the HOMME (High Order Methods Modeling Environment) climate code, and the GAMESS and NWChem computational chemistry codes---on DOE supercomputers. PAPI is widely deployed as middleware for use by higher-level profiling, tracing, and sampling tools (e.g., CrayPat, HPCToolkit, Scalasca, Score-P, TAU, Vampir, PerfExpert), making it the de facto standard for hardware counter analysis. PAPI has established itself as fundamental software infrastructure in every application domain (spanning academia, government, and industry), where improving performance can be mission critical. Ultimately, as more application scientists migrate their applications to HPC platforms, they will benefit from the extended capabilities this grant brought to PAPI to analyze and optimize performance in these environments, whether they use PAPI

interoperability of equipment; and the management and oversight of contingency basing. Improved contingency base sustainability will also enhance mission...with communicating classified information from alternate work locations. In FY 2011, NGA developed and began implementing a telecommuting policy...operating procedures. DLA Disposition Services strengthened its oversight of the electronics demanufacturing process in FY 2011 by tightening

{omicron} Development of High Plasticity and Annular Pellet - Development of strong candidates of ultra high burn-up fuel pellets for a PCI remedy - Development of fabrication technology of annular fuel pellet {omicron} Development of HighPerformance Cladding Materials - Irradiation test of HANA claddings in Halden research reactor and the evaluation of the in-pile performance - Development of the final candidates for the next generation cladding materials. - Development of the manufacturing technology for the dual-cooled fuel cladding tubes. {omicron} Irradiated Fuel Performance Evaluation Technology Development - Development of performance analysis code system for the dual-cooled fuel - Development of fuel performance-proving technology {omicron} Feasibility Studies on Dual-Cooled Annular Fuel Core - Analysis on the property of a reactor core with dual-cooled fuel - Feasibility evaluation on the dual-cooled fuel core {omicron} Development of Design Technology for Dual-Cooled Fuel Structure - Definition of technical issues and invention of concept for dual-cooled fuel structure - Basic design and development of main structure components for dual- cooled fuel - Basic design of a dual-cooled fuel rod.

Over 13 plus years, we have carried out research on electron pairing symmetry of superconductors, growth and their field emission property studies on carbon nanotubes and semiconducting nanowires, highperformance thermoelectric materials and other interesting materials. As a result of the research, we have published 104 papers, have educated six undergraduate students, twenty graduate students, nine postdocs, nine visitors, and one technician.

Highperformance regimes of JT-60U plasmas are presented with an emphasis upon the results from the use of a semi-closed pumped divertor with W-shaped geometry. Plasma performance in transient and quasi steady states has been significantly improved in reversed shear and high- βp regimes. The reversed shear regime elevated an equivalent Q DT eq transiently up to 1.25 (n D (0)τ E T i (0)=8.6x10 20 m-3·s·keV) in a reactor-relevant thermonuclear dominant regime. Long sustainment of enhanced confinement with internal transport barriers (ITBs) with a fully non-inductive current drive in a reversed shear discharge was successfully demonstrated with LH wave injection. Performancesustainment has been extended in the high- bp regime with a high triangularity achieving a long sustainment of plasma conditions equivalent to Q DT eq ∼0.16 (n D (0)τ E T i (0)∼1.4x10 20 m -3 ·s·keV) for ∼4.5 s with a large non-inductive current drive fraction of 60-70% of the plasma current. Thermal and particle transport analyses show significant reduction of thermal and particle diffusivities around ITB resulting in a strong Er shear in the ITB region. The W-shaped divertor is effective for He ash exhaust demonstrating steady exhaust capability of τ He */τ E ∼3-10 in support of ITER. Suppression of neutral back flow and chemical sputtering effect have been observed while MARFE onset density is rather decreased. Negative-ion based neutral beam injection (N-NBI) experiments have created a clear H-mode transition. Enhanced ionization cross- section due to multi-step ionization processes was confirmed as theoretically predicted. A current density profile driven by N-NBI is measured in a good agreement with theoretical prediction. N-NBI induced TAE modes characterized as persistent and bursting oscillations have been observed from a low hot beta of h >∼0.1-0.2% without a significant loss of fast ions. (author)

Full Text Available There is a growing interest in the construction sector in the use of sustainable binders as an alternative to ordinary Portland cement, the production of which is highly impacting on the environment, due to high carbon dioxide emissions and energy consumption. Alkali-activated binders, especially those resulting from low-cost industrial by-products, such as coal fly ash or metallurgical slag, represent a sustainable option for cement replacement, though their use is more challenging, due to some technological issues related to workability or curing conditions. This paper presents sustainable alkali-activated mortars cured in room conditions and based on metakaolin, fly ash, and furnace slag (both by-products resulting from local sources and relevant blends, aiming at their real scale application in the building sector. The effect of binder composition—gradually adjusted taking into consideration technical and environmental aspects (use of industrial by-products in place of natural materials in the view of resources saving—on the performance (workability, compressive strength of different mortar formulations, is discussed in detail. Some guidelines for the design of cement-free binders are given, taking into consideration the effect of each investigated alumino-silicate component. The technical feasibility to produce the mortars with standard procedures and equipment, the curing in room conditions, the promising results achieved in terms of workability and mechanical performance (from 20.0 MPa up to 52.0 MPa, confirm the potential of such materials for practical applications (masonry mortars of class M20 and Md. The cement-free binders resulting from this study can be used as reference for the development of mortars and concrete formulations for sustainable building materials production.

What are the ingredients of high-performing software? Software development, especially for large high-performance systems, is one the most complex tasks mankind has ever tried. Technological change leads to huge opportunities but challenges our old ways of working. Processing large data sets, possibly in real time or with other tight computational constraints, requires an efficient solution architecture. Efficiency requirements span from the distributed storage and large-scale organization of computation and data onto the lowest level of processor and data bus behavior. Integrating performance behavior over these levels is especially important when the computation is resource-bounded, as it is in numerics: physical simulation, machine learning, estimation of statistical models, etc. For example, memory locality and utilization of vector processing are essential for harnessing the computing power of modern processor architectures due to the deep memory hierarchies of modern general-purpose computers. As a r...

There has been an international emerging issue in the role of higher education in promoting sustainability due to numerous declarations and commitments related to the need of sustainability in higher education. As a result, there is an increasing number of higher educations that have embarked on projects and initiatives to incorporate sustainability into their systems. Higher educations could implement ISO 14001 framework that is recognized as a guide for an organization which aim to implement an environmental management system to pursue the sustainability. This research tried to attempt an extension of the previous work in assessing campus sustainability using ISO 14001 framework by integrating the analytic hierarchy process and importance-performance analysis (IPA). The inclusion of IPA is because many organizations are constrained by limitations on the resources they have so that it has to be decided how those limited resources are best deployed to attain the goals to be achieved. The self-assessment scores of ISO 14001 would the performance and the AHP result is the importance part of the IPA. A case study is conducted at the Diponegoro University, which is located in Semarang, Indonesia. The result indicates that only two main elements of ISO 14001 are located in the second quadrant of IPA, i.e. highperformance and high importance. The result also could be a basis for the university to identify, prioritize, and improve the programs related to sustainability and ensure that valuable resources are allocated in the most effective areas.

Concrete is the most widely used building material in the world and its use is expected to grow. It is well recognized that the production of portland cement results in the release of large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas (GHG). The main challenge facing the industry is to produce concrete in an environmentally sustainable manner. Reclaimed industrial by-proudcts such as fly ash, silica fume and slag can reduce the amount of portland cement needed to make concrete, thereby reducing the amount of GHGs released to the atmosphere. The use of these supplementary cementing materials (SCM) can also enhance the long-term strength and durability of concrete. The intention of the EcoSmart{sup TM} Concrete Project is to develop sustainable concrete through innovation in supply, design and construction. In particular, the project focuses on finding a way to minimize the GHG signature of concrete by maximizing the replacement of portland cement in the concrete mix with SCM while improving the cost, performance and constructability. This paper describes the use of Ductal{sup R} Ultra HighPerformance Concrete (UHPC) for ramps in a condominium. It examined the relationship between the selection of UHPC and the overall environmental performance, cost, constructability maintenance and operational efficiency as it relates to the EcoSmart Program. The advantages and challenges of using UHPC were outlined. In addition to its very high strength, UHPC has been shown to have very good potential for GHG emission reduction due to the reduced material requirements, reduced transport costs and increased SCM content. refs., tabs., figs.

Concrete is the most widely used building material in the construction of infrastructures such as buildings, bridges, highways, dams, and many other facilities. This paper reports the development, the basic idea, the main properties of high strength-high volume fly ash with application in concrete associated with the development and implementation of Sustainable Properties of High Volume Fly Ash Concrete (HVFAC) Mixtures and Early Age Shrinkage and mechanical properties of concrete for 7,28,56 and 90days. Another alternative to make environment-friendly concrete is the development of high strength-high-volume fly ash concrete which is an synthesized from materials of geological origin or by-product materials such as fly ash which is rich in silicon and aluminum. In this paper 6 concrete mixtures were produced to evaluate the effect of key parameters on the mechanical properties of concrete and its behavior. The study key parameters are; binder material content, cement replacement ratios, and the steel fibers used to High Volume Fly Ash mixtures for increasing performance of concrete.

Companies and academic studies are consistently reporting several potential business benefits gained fromecodesign implementation, such as increased innovation potential, development of new markets and business models, reduction in environmental liability, risks and costs, improvement of organiza......Companies and academic studies are consistently reporting several potential business benefits gained fromecodesign implementation, such as increased innovation potential, development of new markets and business models, reduction in environmental liability, risks and costs, improvement......, in alignment with corporate sustainability strategy and main drivers....

In Australia, cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is one of the conventional tools used widely by the public and the private sectors in the appraisal of projects. It measures and compares the total costs and benefits of projects that are competing for scarce resources in monetary terms. Growing concerns that the values of environmental goods and services are often ignored or underestimated in the CBA approach have led to the overuse and depletion of environmental assets. A model of a sustainability index as an evaluation tool that combines economic, social and environmental criteria into an indexing algorithm is presented and described. The sustainability index uses monetary and non-monetary approaches to rank projects and facilities on their contribution to sustainability. This process enables the principle of trade-off to occur in the decision-making process and thereby allows environmental values to be considered when selecting a development option. This makes it possible to optimize financial return, maximize resource consumption and minimize detrimental effects to the natural and man-made world. A case study is used to demonstrate the model. (author)

Sustainedhigh normalized beta (βN ∼ 1.9) plasmas with an ITER-like tungsten divertor have been achieved on EAST tokamak recently. The high power NBI heating system of 4.8 MW and the 4.6 GHz lower hybrid wave of 1 MW were developed and applied to produce edge and internal transport barriers in high βN discharges. The central flat q profile with q (ρ) ∼ 1 at ρ safety factor q95 = 4.7 is identified by the multi-channel far-infrared laser polarimeter and the EFIT code. The fraction of non-inductive current is about 40%. The relation between fishbone activity and ITB formation is observed and discussed.

If you are a professional or enthusiast who has a basic understanding of graphs or has basic knowledge of Neo4j operations, this is the book for you. Although it is targeted at an advanced user base, this book can be used by beginners as it touches upon the basics. So, if you are passionate about taming complex data with the help of graphs and building highperformance applications, you will be able to get valuable insights from this book.

Sustainable supply chain management and collaboration have taken big attention from academicians and practitioners. The extensive literature review is conducted to analyse the relationship between Sustainable Supply Chain Management and collaboration and its effects on performance of SSCM dimensions. Then, a framework is proposed to explain the relationship between sustainable supply chain management and collaboration. For further studies the proposed framework should be tested empirically.

Full Text Available Building a sustainableperformance system at the level of the local public administrations must have as starting point the local public administration’s (LPA mission and must go down to the level of the individual. This system must follow the external performance that it delivers to the citizens, the outcomes generated, but also the internal performance which suggests how to achieve the external performance. We propose in this regard the simultaneous use of the Balanced Scorecard tool for managing the internal performance and the Public Service Value Model for measuring the external performance measurement which derives from the organization's mission. In the second part of the work we analyzed comparatively the external performance created by the county capitals of Romania in the year 2013 using the Public Service Value Model (PSVM. Based on this analysis, the county capitals of Romania can be divided in the following categories: highperformance organizations (value driven, budget conscious organizations, low performance organizations (sleeping giants and quality conscious organizations. This classification is useful both for the external and internal stakeholders because it shows the efficiency of public money spending and the areas in which the LPA is performing well, and also the ones that need to be improved.

Hotel building is one of the high-energy-consuming building types, and retrofitting hotel buildings is an untapped solution to help cut carbon emissions contributing towards sustainable development. Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) has been promulgated as a market mechanism for the delivery of energy efficiency projects. EPC mechanism has been introduced into China relatively recently, and it has not been implemented successfully in building energy efficiency retrofit projects. The aim of this research is to develop a model for achieving the sustainability of Building Energy Efficiency Retrofit (BEER) in hotel buildings under the Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) mechanism. The objectives include: • To identify a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for measuring the sustainability of BEER in hotel buildings; • To identify Critical Success Factors (CSFs) under EPC mechanism that have a strong correlation with sustainable BEER project; • To develop a model explaining the relationships between the CSFs and the sustainabilityperformance of BEER in hotel building. Literature reviews revealed the essence of sustainable BEER and EPC, which help to develop a conceptual framework for analyzing sustainable BEER under EPC mechanism in hotel buildings. 11 potential KPIs for sustainable BEER and 28 success factors of EPC were selected based on the developed framework. A questionnaire survey was conducted to ascertain the importance of selected performance indicators and success factors. Fuzzy set theory was adopted in identifying the KPIs. Six KPIs were identified from the 11 selected performance indicators. Through a questionnaire survey, out of the 28 success factors, 21 Critical Success Factors (CSFs) were also indentified. Using the factor analysis technique, the 21 identified CSFs in this study were grouped into six clusters to help explain project success of sustainable BEER. Finally, AHP/ANP approach was used in this research to develop a model to

The aim of the present project is through modeling, material and process development to obtain significantly better MEA performance and to attain the technology necessary to fabricate stable catalyst materials thereby providing a viable alternative to current industry standard. This project primarily focused on the development and characterization of novel catalyst materials for the use in high temperature (HT) and low temperature (LT) proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). New catalysts are needed in order to improve fuel cell performance and reduce the cost of fuel cell systems. Additional tasks were the development of new, durable sealing materials to be used in PEMFC as well as the computational modeling of heat and mass transfer processes, predominantly in LT PEMFC, in order to improve fundamental understanding of the multi-phase flow issues and liquid water management in fuel cells. An improved fundamental understanding of these processes will lead to improved fuel cell performance and hence will also result in a reduced catalyst loading to achieve the same performance. The consortium have obtained significant research results and progress for new catalyst materials and substrates with promising enhanced performance and fabrication of the materials using novel methods. However, the new materials and synthesis methods explored are still in the early research and development phase. The project has contributed to improved MEA performance using less precious metal and has been demonstrated for both LT-PEM, DMFC and HT-PEM applications. New novel approach and progress of the modelling activities has been extremely satisfactory with numerous conference and journal publications along with two potential inventions concerning the catalyst layer. (LN)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the student learning outcomes (SLOs) for a sustainability major, evaluate faculty incorporation of the SLOs into the courses in the sustainability major curriculum and measure student performance on the SLOs from entry into the major to the senior capstone course. Design/methodology/approach:…

The MELOX plant in the south of France together with the La Hague reprocessing plant, are part of the two industrial facilities in charge of closing the nuclear fuel cycle in France. Started up in 1995, MELOX has since accumulated a solid know-how in recycling plutonium recovered from spent uranium fuel into MOX: a fuel blend comprised of both uranium and plutonium oxides. Converting recovered Pu into a proliferation-resistant material that can readily be used to power a civil nuclear reactor, MOX fabrication offers a sustainable solution to safely take advantage of the plutonium's high energy content. Being the first large-capacity industrial facility dedicated to MOX fuel fabrication, MELOX distinguishes itself from the first generation MOX plants with high capacity (around 200 tHM versus around 40 tHM) and several unique operational features designed to improve productivity, reliability and flexibility while maintaining high safety standards. Providing an exemplary reference for high throughput MOX fabrication with 1,000 tHM produced since start-up, the unique process and technologies implemented at MELOX are currently inspiring other MOX plant construction projects (in Japan with the J-MOX plant, in the US and in Russia as part of the weapon-grade plutonium inventory reduction). Spurred by the growing international demand, MELOX has embarked upon an ambitious production development and diversification plan. Starting from an annual level of 100 tons of heavy metal (tHM), MELOX demonstrated production capacity is continuously increasing: MELOX is now aiming for a minimum of 140 tHM by the end of 2005, with the ultimate ambition of reaching the full capacity of the plant (around 200 tHM) in the near future. With regards to its activity, MELOX also remains deeply committed to sustainable development in a consolidated involvement within AREVA group. The French minister of Industry, on August 26th 2005, acknowledged the benefits of MOX fuel production at MELOX: 'In

AEX quoted businesses in the Netherlands have shown an almost continuously increasing tendency towards sustainability in the period 2002-2006. Leaders are the chemical industry, the oil and gas sector, the financial sector and food companies. Little attention for sustainability is yet to be detected in business houses and publishing houses, although the topic is gaining interest. The assertion that sustainability translates into a higher market value of shares cannot be confirmed. A statistical correlation has been noticed, though, between sustainability attitude and environmental performance [mk] [nl

With the increase in the number of digital crimes and in their sophistication, HighPerformance Computing (HPC) is becoming a must in Digital Forensics (DF). According to the FBI annual report, the size of data processed during the 2010 fiscal year reached 3,086 TB (compared to 2,334 TB in 2009) and the number of agencies that requested Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory assistance increasing from 689 in 2009 to 722 in 2010. Since most investigation tools are both I/O and CPU bound, the next-generation DF tools are required to be distributed and offer HPC capabilities. The need for HPC is even more evident in investigating crimes on clouds or when proactive DF analysis and on-site investigation, requiring semi-real time processing, are performed. Although overcoming the performance challenge is a major goal in DF, as far as we know, there is almost no research on HPC-DF except for few papers. As such, in this work, we extend our work on the need of a proactive system and present a highperformance automated proactive digital forensic system. The most expensive phase of the system, namely proactive analysis and detection, uses a parallel extension of the iterative z algorithm. It also implements new parallel information-based outlier detection algorithms to proactively and forensically handle suspicious activities. To analyse a large number of targets and events and continuously do so (to capture the dynamics of the system), we rely on a multi-resolution approach to explore the digital forensic space. Data set from the Honeynet Forensic Challenge in 2001 is used to evaluate the system from DF and HPC perspectives.

Full Text Available The development of the environment of a company has a direct influence on its performance and its success. For this reason a company should not only analyze its internal performance, but also the external performance of the business environment and the su

A major objective of the U.S. Department of Energy is to have a zero energy commercial building by the year 2025. Windows have a major influence on the energy performance of the building envelope as they control over 55% of building energy load, and represent one important area where technologies can be developed to save energy. Aluminum framing systems are used in over 80% of commercial fenestration products (i.e. windows, curtain walls, store fronts, etc.). Aluminum framing systems are often required in commercial buildings because of their inherent good structural properties and long service life, which is required from commercial and architectural frames. At the same time, they are lightweight and durable, requiring very little maintenance, and offer design flexibility. An additional benefit of aluminum framing systems is their relatively low cost and easy manufacturability. Aluminum, being an easily recyclable material, also offers sustainable features. However, from energy efficiency point of view, aluminum frames have lower thermal performance due to the very high thermal conductivity of aluminum. Fenestration systems constructed of aluminum alloys therefore have lower performance in terms of being effective barrier to energy transfer (heat loss or gain). Despite the lower energy performance, aluminum is the choice material for commercial framing systems and dominates the commercial/architectural fenestration market because of the reasons mentioned above. In addition, there is no other cost effective and energy efficient replacement material available to take place of aluminum in the commercial/architectural market. Hence it is imperative to improve the performance of aluminum framing system to improve the energy performance of commercial fenestration system and in turn reduce the energy consumption of commercial building and achieve zero energy building by 2025. The objective of this project was to develop highperformance, energy efficient commercial

Full Text Available In today’s world of increasing ecological, social and economic issues, the question as to how businesses can become a vehicle towards more sustainable development has become more relevant than ever. Crucial to a more sustainable economy is the successful implementation of sustainable practices through entrepreneurial activities. Although there are attempts to describe how sustainable entrepreneurs differentiate themselves, the question of how some entrepreneurs manage to successfully create a sustainable enterprise, while others do not, remains unanswered. The aim of this research is to find causal patterns that explain the success of sustainable entrepreneurs, using their social performance as a measure. Using a configuration approach-based fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA of 598 Austrian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs, we could identify four different combinations of the interconnected variables of innovation orientation, environmental sustainability, resource leveraging and achievement motivation, which all lead to social performance depending on the respective networking intensity of the firms. The only variable that is included in all combinations is environmental sustainability, thus indicating it may be either crucial to or a prerequisite for achieving social performance in SMEs.

Aiming at efficient and mindful use of natural resources while enabling social cohesion and economic development; sustainable development is one of the most emerging phenomenon in last decade. In this regard, role of urban development is critical by means of achieving sustainability since more than half of the world's population lives in cities. However, there is no solid and widely accepted approach for sustainability assessment in land use planning because there is not enough evidence on the relation between land use plans and environmental sustainability. With the basic aim of setting up relation between environmental sustainability and urban plans, this study utilizes ecosystem services phenomenon to define sustainabilityperformance of a land use plan. Since ecosystem services can easily be related with land cover and land use they can be used as an efficient tool to act as indicators of sustainability. Meanwhile, while urban plans can provide ecosystem services and their level of service provision can be quantified, this is not solely enough for understanding its sustainability. Because it is also known that a land use plan mostly has negative impact on sustainability. Hence, this study embraces land use plans as a source of ecosystem services and environmental impacts. The difference between these entities are assumed to be the sustainabilityperformance of a plan. The analysis relies on four parameters: ecosystem service capacity (environmental impact capacity), areal quantity of a land cover / use function, fragmantation level of the land use / cover and weight of ecosystem services / environmental impacts. Lastly, this approach is adopted for Istanbul's environmental master plan of 2009 and actual land cover of the same period. By calculating both data's environmental performance, the change of sustainability level sourced from environmental plan is analyzed.

Contribution: Organisations can benefit from an insight into understanding how the identified requisite leader behavioural competencies possibly can impact organisational performance in their respective environments.

Full Text Available This study aimed to identify how collaboration for innovation relates to the sustainableperformance of the electronics industry in Brazil. We used a quantitative approach, collecting data by means of a cross-sectional survey in a sample of 112 companies. The main result indicates that the relationship between collaboration and sustainableperformance is positive and significant, but of low intensity, confirming the indication from the literature. The same is noticed in checking the relationship between the collaboration and the three dimensions of sustainableperformance, although no statistically significant difference was found between the degree of correlation and the three dimensions. Intervening factors such as size, age, internationalization and capital structure were also considered in verifying the relationship between collaboration for innovation and sustainableperformance.

One of the most frequently applied methods to study abnormal cognition is the Continuous Performance Task (CPT). It is unclear, however, which cognitive functions are engaged in normal CPT performance. The aims of the present study were to identify the neurocognitive functions engaged in the main

Final remedies at most uranium mill tailings sites include engineered covers designed to contain metals and radionuclides in the subsurface for hundreds of years. Early cover designs rely on compacted soil layers to limit water infiltration and release of radon, but some of these covers inadvertently created habitats for deep-rooted plants. Root intrusion and soil development increased the saturated hydraulic conductivity several orders of magnitude above design targets. These covers may require high levels of maintenance to sustain long-term performance. Relatively low precipitation, high potential evapotranspiration, and thick unsaturated soils favor long-term hydrologic isolation of buried waste at arid and semiarid sites. Later covers were designed to mimic this natural soil-water balance with the goal of sustainingperformance with little or no maintenance. For example, the cover for the Monticello, Utah, Superfund site relies on a thick soil-sponge layer overlying a sand-and-gravel capillary barrier to store precipitation while plants are dormant and on native vegetation to dry the soil sponge during the growing season. Measurements of both off-site caisson lysimeters and a large 3-ha lysimeter built into the final cover show that drainage has been well below a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency target of less than 3.0 mm/yr. Our stewardship strategy combines monitoring precursors to failure, probabilistic riskbased modeling, and characterization of natural analogs to project performance of covers for a range of possible future environmental scenarios. Natural analogs are needed to understand how ecological processes will influence cover performance, processes that cannot be predicted with short-term monitoring and existing numerical models.

In order to leverage individual and organizational learning and to remain competitive in current turbulent markets it is important for employees, managers, planners and leaders to perform at high levels over time. Employee competence and skills are extremely important matters in view of the general shortage of talent and the mobility of employees with talent. Two factors emerged to have the greatest impact on the competitiveness of complex service systems: improving managerial and employee's knowledge attainment for skills, and improving the training and development of the workforce. This paper introduces the knowledge-based user-centered service design approach for sustainable skill and performance improvement in education, design and modeling of the next generation of complex service systems. The rest of the paper cover topics in human factors and sustainable business process modeling for the service industry, and illustrates the user-centered service system development cycle with the integration of systems engineering concepts in service systems. A roadmap for designing service systems of the future is discussed. The framework introduced in this paper is based on key user-centered design principles and systems engineering applications to support service competitiveness.

Automatic test and calibration has become a valuable feature in many consumer products--ranging from antilock braking systems to auto-tune TVs. This paper discusses HMDs (Helmet Mounted Displays) and how similar techniques can reduce life cycle costs and increase sustainableperformance if they are integrated into a program early enough. Optical ATE (Automatic Test Equipment) is already zeroing distortion in the HMDs and thereby making binocular displays a practical reality. A suitcase sized, field portable optical ATE unit could re-zero these errors in the Ready Room to cancel the effects of aging, minor damage and component replacement. Planning on this would yield large savings through relaxed component specifications and reduced logistic costs. Yet, the sustainedperformance would far exceed that attained with fixed calibration strategies. Major tactical benefits can come from reducing display errors, particularly in information fusion modules and virtual `beyond visual range' operations. Some versions of the ATE described are in production and examples of high resolution optical test data will be discussed.

Spent reactor fuel from commercial power stations contains high levels of plutonium, other fissionable actinides, and fission products, all of which pose serious challenges for permanent disposal because of the very long half-lives of some isotopes. The 'nuclear nations' have agreed on the use of permanent geologic repositories for the ultimate disposal of high-level nuclear waste. However, it is premature to claim that a geologic repository offers permanent isolation from the biosphere, given high levels of uncertainty, nascent risk assessment frameworks for the time periods considered, and serious intergenerational equity issues. Many have argued for a broader consideration of disposal options that include extended monitored retrievable storage and accelerator-driven transmutation of wastes. In this paper we discuss and compare these three options relative to standards that emerge from the application of sustainable development principles, namely long-lasting technical viability, intergenerational equity, rational resource allocation, and rights of future intervention. We conclude that in order to maximise the autonomy of future generations, it is imperative to leave future options more open than does permanent disposal

The developments of superior next-generation light water reactor are requested on the basis of general view points, such as improvement of safety, economics, reduction of radiation waste and effective utilization of plutonium, until 2030 year in which conventional reactor plants should be renovate. Improvements of stainless steel cladding for conventional high burn-up reactor to more than 100 GWd/t, developments of manufacturing technology for reduced moderation-light water reactor (RMWR) of breeding ratio beyond 1.0 and researches of water-materials interaction on super critical pressure-water cooled reactor are carried out in Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. Stable austenite stainless steel has been selected for fuel element cladding of advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR). The austenite stain less has the superiority for anti-irradiation properties, corrosion resistance and mechanical strength. A hard spectrum of neutron energy up above 0.1 MeV takes place in core of the reduced moderation-light water reactor, as liquid metal-fast breeding reactor (LMFBR). Highperformance cladding for the RMWR fuel elements is required to get anti-irradiation properties, corrosion resistance and mechanical strength also. Slow strain rate test (SSRT) of SUS 304 and SUS 316 are carried out for studying stress corrosion cracking (SCC). Irradiation tests in LMFBR are intended to obtain irradiation data for damaged quantity of the cladding materials. (M. Suetake)

The objective of this research is to empirically analyze the role played by corporate image, sustainability, and innovative orientation on export performance. Hypothesis testing was conducted with a sample of 180 manufacturing SMEs in Seville (Spain) and a structural equation system is modeled using the technique Partial Least Squares (PLS). The research model includes the following variables: corporate image, sustainability, and innovative orientation on export performance. The results show the positive effect of sustainability and innovative orientation on export performance, as well as the mediator effect of corporate image on these relationships. The results may be more general if we had used a national sample and cross cultural. The conclusions cannot be directly extrapolated to other countries. This work propose future research doing the same study with other types companies. Corporate image requires special attention, as it acts as a filter of the impacts of sustainability and innovative orientation. The creation of corporate image not only as a result of tangible items, but as a result of the actions and behavior of the company. In this research is showed that there is a high level of complexity in the management of intangibles since the intangibles influence each other, such as the influence of sustainability and innovative orientation on corporate image. Managers should focus on proper design and management of the company image, in order to compete and grow in the international area. (Author)

Full Text Available Existing research on the resource-based view (RBV has provided limited evidence on how firms achieve superior and sustainable business performance; this failure is because current literature de-emphasizes the importance of operations. This paper argues that to gain and sustain superior business performance, a firm’s sustainable competitive advantage is not enough, its operations also needs to be competitively distinct. Therefore, through unifying the necessary conditions of superior and sustainable business performance the paper presents a better understanding of the RBV. The success story of Walmart, from existing literature, is considered as an example to support the proposed framework. The paper concludes that the cost of operations, opportunity cost, cost of resources and possible output are the crucial factors in resource choice and operations decision to secure competitively distinct operations. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications, research limitations and future research possibilities are discussed.

Washington River Protection Solutions LLC (WRPS) has been involved with culture improvement for a number of years which has included co-chairing the industry effort to develop the EFCOG safety culture guidance documents [1, 2], and integration of this guidance into organizational processes and behavior expectations, described in more detail below. As various organizational cultural assessments have been periodically performed, and subsequent actions implemented to address improvement opportunities, organizational performance has shown improvement. Culture improvement is evident in the company's industrial safety statistics, event rates, safety culture survey results, employee morale, productivity, leadership effectiveness, and employee engagement. There does appear to be a relationship between striving to demonstrate behaviors consistent with excellent safety culture and good organizational performance over the past couple of years at WRPS. As performance continues to be evaluated, an improvement opportunity was identified to further enhance performance through field oriented behavioral/cultural improvement activities. WRPS recently conducted a three month effort to improve consistent implementation of management expectations by increasing management field presence with a focus on interacting real-time with workers and first line supervisors, and changing behaviors as appropriate. (authors)

Washington River Protection Solutions LLC (WRPS) has been involved with culture improvement for a number of years which has included co-chairing the industry effort to develop the EFCOG safety culture guidance documents [1, 2], and integration of this guidance into organizational processes and behavior expectations, described in more detail below. As various organizational cultural assessments have been periodically performed, and subsequent actions implemented to address improvement opportunities, organizational performance has shown improvement. Culture improvement is evident in the company's industrial safety statistics, event rates, safety culture survey results, employee morale, productivity, leadership effectiveness, and employee engagement. There does appear to be a relationship between striving to demonstrate behaviors consistent with excellent safety culture and good organizational performance over the past couple of years at WRPS. As performance continues to be evaluated, an improvement opportunity was identified to further enhance performance through field oriented behavioral/cultural improvement activities. WRPS recently conducted a three month effort to improve consistent implementation of management expectations by increasing management field presence with a focus on interacting real-time with workers and first line supervisors, and changing behaviors as appropriate. (authors)

The book will present original research papers on the quantitative methods and techniques for the evaluation of the sustainability of business operations and organizations' overall environmental performance. The book contributions will describe modern methods and approaches applicable to the multi-faceted problem of sustainability appraisal and will help to fulfil generic frameworks presented in the literature with the specific quantitative techniques so needed in practice. The scope of the book is interdisciplinary in nature, making it of interest to environmental researchers, business managers and process analysts, information management professionals and environmental decision makers, who will find valuable sources of information for their work-related activities. Each chapter will provide sufficient background information, a description of problems, and results, making the book useful for a wider audience. Additional software support is not required. One of the most important issues in developing sustainable management strategies and incorporating ecodesigns in production, manufacturing and operations management is the assessment of the sustainability of business operations and organizations' overall environmental performance. The book presents the results of recent studies on sustainability assessment. It provides a solid reference for researchers in academia and industrial practitioners on the state-of-the-art in sustainability appraisal including the development and application of sustainability indices, quantitative methods, models and frameworks for the evaluation of current and future welfare outcomes, recommendations on data collection and processing for the evaluation of organizations' environmental performance, and eco-efficiency approaches leading to business process re-engineering.

Full Text Available This paper draws on findings from the results of a study of leadership in highperforming organizations in three sectors. Organizations were sampled and included on the basis of highperformance in relation to no performance, past performance, performance among similar peers and performance in the face of limited resources or challenging circumstances. The paper concentrates on leadership in four schools that met the sample criteria. It draws connections to explanations of the highperformance ofEstoniaon the OECD PISA tests of educational achievement. The article argues that leadership in these four schools that performed above expectations comprised more than a set of competencies. Instead, leadership took the form of a narrative or quest that pursued an inspiring dream with relentless determination; took improvement pathways that were more innovative than comparable peers; built collaboration and community including with competing schools; and connected short-term success to long-term sustainability.

Full Text Available The issue of sustainability is relevant for all types of businesses and organizations. Long-term development has always been and remains one of the most difficult tasks faced by organizations. The implementation the provisions of international standards ISO series 9000 has proven to be effective. The ISO standards are concentrated on the global experience for sustainable success of organizations. The standards incorporated all the rational that has been accumulated in this field of knowledge and practice. These standards not only eliminate technical barriers in collaboration and have established standardized approaches, but also serve as a valuable source of international experience and ready management solutions. They became a practical guide for the creation of management systems for sustainable development in organizations of different spheres of activity.Problem and purpose. The article presents the author’s approach to the problem of sustainable development health of the organization. The purpose of this article is to examine the approaches to management for sustainable success of organizations and to describe a model of sustainable development applied in research healthcare institutions providing high-tech medical care.Methodology. The study used general scientific methods of empirical and theoretical knowledge, general logical methods and techniques and methods of system analysis, comparison, analogy, generalization, the materials research for the development of medical organizations.The main results of our work are to first develop the technique of complex estimation of activity of the scientific-research institutions of health and deploy key elements of the management system that allows the level of maturity of the management system of the institution to be set in order to identify its strengths and weaknesses, and to identify areas for improvements and innovation, and to set priorities for determining the sequence of action when

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variations of stakeholder engagement and adopt a value chain narrative in their sustainability reporting. Multi-stakeholder reporting standards like the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the UN Global Compact (UNGC) are adopted by corporations across industries, but only target sustainability issues...... in supply- and value chains to a limited extent. Though, this article proposes that the ongoing work towards new standards for integrated sustainability reporting represents a unique opportunity for increasing the presence of supply- and value chain perspectives in reporting in a way that facilitates a more...... optimal use of sustainability reports as a primary data source in research. Hence, this article proposes a conceptual framework for research on sustainabilityperformance in corporate value chains, which potentially increases the future contributions to both the literature let alone practice. Different...

This paper aims to provide a general view of the background and current state of building performance simulation, which has the potential to deliver, directly or indirectly, substantial benefits to building stakeholders and to the environment. However the building simulation community faces many

This paper aims to provide a general view of the background and current state of building performance simulation, which has the potential to deliver, directly or indirectly, substantial benefits to building stakeholders and to the environment. However the building simulation community faces many

This paper presents the development and quantification of a catalogue of SustainablePerformance Indicators (SPIs) for the assessment of the benefits real-time mining can offer in small and complex mechanised underground mining operations. The SPIs investigated in detail include: ‒ grade accuracy and error of the resource model, ‒ high/low grade ore classification accuracy and error, ‒ additional high grade ore identified per unit volume, ‒ profit expected per unit volume, ‒ or...

Full Text Available This paper presents an analysis of the literature concerning the impact of corporate sustainability on corporate financial performance. The relationship between corporate sustainable practices and financial performance has received growing attention in research, yet a consensus remains elusive. This paper identifies developing trends and the issues that hinder conclusive consensus on that relationship. We used content analysis to examine the literature and establish the current state of research. A total of 132 papers from top-tier journals are shortlisted. We find that 78% of publications report a positive relationship between corporate sustainability and financial performance. Variations in research methodology and measurement of variables lead to the divergent views on the relationship. Furthermore, literature is slowly replacing total sustainability with narrower corporate social responsibility (CSR, which is dominated by the social dimension of sustainability, while encompassing little to nothing of environmental and economic dimensions. Studies from developing countries remain scarce. More research is needed to facilitate convergence in the understanding of the relationship between corporate sustainable practices and financial performance.

In this article, we provide a broad picture of the adaptation of economic classification technologies that were originally used to provide financial information and to classify companies according to their financial performance. The same approach is now available for the benefit of sustainability investors. The adaptation of such financial classification technologies to account for questions of sustainability has been engendered by the growing importance of financial markets and by the recogn...

Full Text Available The paper deals with such issues as formation and development of the infrastructure of objects for serving tourists in urban environment and specially protected natural areas with particular focus on open tower structures - a type of object which is so popular in Russia. The authors systematize international experience of integrating watchtowers in natural and anthropogenic environment as well as specific features of their modern architectural solutions. A number of examples are given. Summing up the results of the analysis we have come to conclusion that in the field of tourism the most promising tendency in functional use of vertical structures is the demonstration of cultural and natural attractions. It is also noted that in national and natural parks objects of the tower type can be built for other purposes, e.g. for conducting research, monitoring weather conditions and emergency situations. It is shown that the development of infrastructure of high-rise buildings for educational tourism contributes to sustainable development of territories and settlements.

The paper deals with such issues as formation and development of the infrastructure of objects for serving tourists in urban environment and specially protected natural areas with particular focus on open tower structures - a type of object which is so popular in Russia. The authors systematize international experience of integrating watchtowers in natural and anthropogenic environment as well as specific features of their modern architectural solutions. A number of examples are given. Summing up the results of the analysis we have come to conclusion that in the field of tourism the most promising tendency in functional use of vertical structures is the demonstration of cultural and natural attractions. It is also noted that in national and natural parks objects of the tower type can be built for other purposes, e.g. for conducting research, monitoring weather conditions and emergency situations. It is shown that the development of infrastructure of high-rise buildings for educational tourism contributes to sustainable development of territories and settlements.

Quinones, which are ubiquitous in nature, can act as sustainable and green electrode materials but face dissolution in organic electrolytes, resulting in fast fading of capacity and short cycle life. We report that quinone electrodes, especially calix[4]quinone (C4Q) in rechargeable metal zinc batteries coupled with a cation-selective membrane using an aqueous electrolyte, exhibit a high capacity of 335 mA h g−1 with an energy efficiency of 93% at 20 mA g−1 and a long life of 1000 cycles with a capacity retention of 87% at 500 mA g−1. The pouch zinc batteries with a respective depth of discharge of 89% (C4Q) and 49% (zinc anode) can deliver an energy density of 220 Wh kg−1 by mass of both a C4Q cathode and a theoretical Zn anode. We also develop an electrostatic potential computing method to demonstrate that carbonyl groups are active centers of electrochemistry. Moreover, the structural evolution and dissolution behavior of active materials during discharge and charge processes are investigated by operando spectral techniques such as IR, Raman, and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopies. Our results show that batteries using quinone cathodes and metal anodes in aqueous electrolyte are reliable approaches for mass energy storage. PMID:29511734

Full Text Available The importance of research and development (R&D for business sustainability have gained increasing interests, especially in the high-tech sector. However, the efforts of R&D might cause complex and mixed impacts on the financial results considering the associated expenses. Thus, this study aims to examine how R&D efforts may influence business to improve its financial performance considering the dual objectives: the gross and the net profitability. This research integrates a rough-set-based soft computing technique and multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM methods to explore this complex and yet valuable issue. A group of public listed companies from Taiwan, all in the semiconductor sector, is analyzed as a case study. More than 30 variables are considered, and the adopted soft computing technique retrieves 14 core attributes—for the dual profitability objectives—to form the evaluation model. The importance of R&D for pursuing superior financial prospects is confirmed, and the empirical case demonstrates how to guide an individual company to plan for improvements to achieve its long-term sustainability by this hybrid approach.

Full Text Available Objective: Present study compares relationship between motor performance, sustained attention and impulse control in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and normal children. Materials & Methods: In this descriptive-analytic study, 21 boys with ADHD and 21 normal boys in the age range of 7- 10 years old were participated. Motor performance by using Bruininks Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency and sustained attention and impulse control by using Continuous Performance Test were evaluated. Results: Analysis by T-Test and Mann-Whitney revealed significant difference between ADHD group and normal group in gross, fine and battery motor performance also sustained attention and impulse control (P<0.0001. Analysis by Z-Fisher test indicated no significant difference between Correlation Coefficient of inattention and gross motor performance in two groups (P=0.276 but significant difference between Correlation Coefficient of inattention and fine (P<0.0001 and battery (P<0.0001 motor performance were shown. Correlation Coefficient impulsivity and gross (P=0.379, fine (P=0.92 and battery (P=0.562 motor performance shown no significant difference between two groups. Conclusion: According to study results there was a positive relation between sustained attention and impulse control and most of motor performance in both groups. Therefore these findings help Occupational Therapist to determine rehabilitation priorities and to use exact strategies in order to enhance motor performance in children.

Full Text Available Despite the plethora of literature in sustainability and supply chain management in the recent years, a quantitative tool that measures the sustainabilityperformance of an industrial supply network, considering the uncertainties of existing data, is hard to find. This conceptual paper is aimed at establishing a quantitative measure for the sustainabilityperformance of industrial supply networks that considers aleatory and epistemic uncertainties in its environmental performance evaluation. The measure is built upon economic, environmental and social performance evaluation models. These models address a number of shortcomings in the literature, such as incomplete and inaccurate calculation of environmental impacts, as well as the disregard for aleatory and epistemic uncertainties in the input data and, more importantly, the scarce number of quantitative social sustainability measures. Dyadic interactions are chosen for the network, while the network members have a revenue-sharing relationship. This relationship promotes sharing of the required information for the use of the proposed model. This measure provides an approach to quantify the environmental, social and economic sustainabilityperformances of a supply network. Moreover, as this measure is not specifically designed for an industrial sector, it can be employed over an evolving and diverse industrial network.

Critical power (CP), respiratory compensation point (RCP), maximal lactate steady state (MLSS), and deoxyhemoglobin breakpoint ([HHb]BP) are alternative functional indices that are thought to demarcate the highest exercise intensity that can be tolerated for long durations. We tested the hypothesis that CP, RCP, MLSS, and [HHb]BP occur at the same metabolic intensity by examining the pulmonary oxygen uptake (V˙)O2p and power output (PO) associated with each "threshold." Twelve healthy men (mean ± SD age, 27 ± 3 yr) performed the following tests on a cycle ergometer: i) four to five exhaustive tests for determination of CP, ii) two to three 30-min constant-power trials for MLSS determination, and iii) a ramp incremental exercise test from which the V˙O2p and PO at RCP and [HHb]BP were determined. During each trial, breath-by-breath V˙O2p and ventilatory variables were measured with a metabolic cart and flowmeter turbine; near-infrared spectroscopy-derived [HHb] was monitored using a frequency domain multidistance system, and arterialized capillary blood lactate was sampled at regular intervals. There were no differences (P > 0.05) among the V˙O2p values associated with CP, RCP, MLSS, and [HHb]BP (CP, 3.29 ± 0.48; RCP, 3.34 ± 0.45; MLSS, 3.27 ± 0.44; [HHb]BP, 3.41 ± 0.46 L·min(-1)); however, the PO associated with RCP (262 ± 48 W) and [HHb]BP (273 ± 41 W) were greater (P 0.05). Although the standard methods for determination of CP, RCP, MLSS, and [HHb]BP are different, these indices occur at the same V˙O2p, suggesting that i) they may manifest as a result of similar physiological phenomenon and ii) each provides a valid delineation between tolerable and intolerable constant-power exercise.

Full Text Available As the use of social network sites (SNS has become increasingly prevalent, its effect on sustainableperformance has received much attention. The existing literature has taken either a positive or negative view of SNS, arguing that it either decreases performance by taking time and effort away from work, or increases performance by providing social benefits for enhancing performance. In contrast, this experimental study, investigates how SNS use can disturb or enhance the performance of different types of tasks differently, thus influencing the sustainability of task performance. Based on distraction-conflict theory, this study distinguishes between simple and complex tasks, examines the role of SNS, and analyzes data including electroencephalography data captured by a brain-computer interface. The results show that task performance can be sustainable such that SNS use positively influences performance when participants are engaged in a simple task and influences performance neither positively nor negatively when participants are engaged in a complex task. The study finds the former result is attributable to the positive effect of the psychological arousal induced by SNS use and the latter result to the negative effect of the psychological arousal offsetting the positive effect of reduced stress resulting from SNS use.

Full Text Available Surrounded by the ocean, Taiwan has been increasingly developing coastal tourism projects. Concerns that negative impacts might be brought about by prosperous tourism have resulted in a recent focus on sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism involves policies that acknowledge the interdependences among the environment, the community, and the economy. The goal of sustainable tourism is to enhance and protect the environment while satisfying basic human requirements, as well as those of the contemporary and future tourism industries to improve quality of life. On the other hand, unsustainable coastal tourism might undermine the natural environment and society, resulting in air, water, and soil pollution, wildlife habitat disruption, and changes of local community cultural characteristics. Therefore, performance evaluation of coastal tourism, using an indicator framework to facilitate sustainable development and enhance the effectiveness of coastal resources exploitation, is critical. Through a literature review and expert surveys using the methods of the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM and the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP, this study builds a performance indicator framework and identifies the key factors affecting the sustainable development of coastal tourism in Taiwan. The results can serve as a reference for the public sector to be used for the sustainable planning and development of coastal tourism.

The services industry growth has been significant relation with economic growth. A new paradigm is needed for services sector development. The supply chain and performance measurement able to sustain of services industry growth. The supply chain implementation in the services industry called service supply chain (SSC). The globalization and stakeholder pressure makes operation of SSC should more attention to sustainability issue which consists of economic, social and environment simultaneously on SSC. Furthermore, services industry can develop by implementation of the sustainable SSC and its performance measurement. The sustainable SSC implementation can minimize of negative operation effect to environment and social, and maximize of profit. Sustainable service supply chain performance measurements (SSSCPM) are still less explored. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature in the field SSC, SSSC, SSC performance measurement (SSCPM) and SSSCPM for identification of the SSSCPM frameworks and indicators. Beside, the result of review able to look opportunities for develop a new framework for SSSCPM at the operational level, tactical and strategic, multiplayer and close loop, the effectiveness of the integration and development of modeling and simulation for evaluation in the future.

This research reviews five studies that evaluate national environmental sustainability with composite indices; performs uncertainty and sensitivity analyses of techniques for building a composite index; completes principal components factor analysis to help build subindices measuring waste and pollution, sustainable energy, sustainable food, nature conservation, and sustainable cities (Due to its current importance, the greenhouse gases (GHG) indicator is included individually as another policy measure.); analyses factors that seem to influence performance: climate, population growth, population density, economic output, technological development, industrial structure, energy prices, environmental governance, pollution abatement and control expenditures, and environmental pricing; and explores Canadian policy implications of the results. The techniques to build composite indices include performance indicator selection, missing data treatment, normalisation technique, scale-effect adjustments, weights, and aggregation method. Scale-effect adjustments and normalisation method are significant sources of uncertainty inducing 68% of the observed variation in a country's final rank at the 95% level of confidence. Choice of indicators also introduces substantial variation as well. To compensate for this variation, the current study recommends that a composite index should always be analysed with other policy subindices and individual indicators. Moreover, the connection between population and consumption indicates that per capita scale-effect adjustments should be used for certain indicators. Rather than ranking normalisation, studies should use a method that retains information from the raw indicator values. Multiple regression and cluster analyses indicate economic output, environmental governance, and energy prices are major influential factors, with energy prices the most important. It is statistically significant for five out of seven performance measures at the 95

This book is an easy-to-follow guide, full of hands-on, real-world examples. Each topic is explained and demonstrated in a specific and user-friendly flow, from search optimization using Solr to Deployment of Zookeeper applications. This book is ideal for Apache Solr developers and want to learn different techniques to optimize Solr performance with utmost efficiency, along with effectively troubleshooting the problems that usually occur while trying to boost performance. Familiarity with search servers and database querying is expected.

The performance of any engineering component depends on and is limited by the properties of the material from which it is fabricated. It is crucial for engineering students to understand these material properties, interpret them and select the right material for the right application. In this paper we present a new method to engage students with the material selection process. In a competition-based practical, first-year undergraduate students design, cost and cast composite chocolate samples to maximize a particular performance criterion. The same activity could be adapted for any level of education to introduce the subject of materials properties and their effects on the material chosen for specific applications.

Hotel building is a type of high-energy-consuming building and most existing hotel buildings need energy efficiency improvement in China. Energy performance contracting (EPC) is considered a win-win mechanism to organize building energy efficiency retrofit (BEER) project. However, EPC mechanism has been introduced into China relatively recently and many EPCs have not been successful in building energy efficiency retrofit projects. This research aims to develop a set of critical success factors (CSFs) of EPC for sustainable energy efficiency retrofit (BEER) of hotel buildings in China. Semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey with practitioners and other professionals were conducted. The findings reveal the relative importance of the 21 number of identified success factors. In order to explore the underlying relationship among the identified critical success factors (CSFs), factor analysis method was adopted for further investigation, which leads to grouping the 21 identified CSFs into six clusters. These are (1) project organization process, (2) EPC project financing for hotel retrofit, (3) knowledge and innovation of EPC, sustainable development (SD), and M and V, (4) implementation of sustainable development strategy, (5) contractual arrangement, and (6) external economic environment. Finally, several relevant policies were proposed to implement EPC successfully in sustainable BEER in hotel buildings. - Highlights: → EPC is a win-win mechanism to organize building energy efficiency retrofit project. → CSFs of EPC mechanism for sustainable BEER of hotel building in China are examined. → Six clusters are extracted from 21 identified CSFs based on factor analysis.

The performance of any engineering component depends on and is limited by the properties of the material from which it is fabricated. It is crucial for engineering students to understand these material properties, interpret them and select the right material for the right application. In this paper we present a new method to engage students with…

Reviews management changes that companies have made over time in adopting or adapting four approaches to organizational performance: employee involvement, total quality management, re-engineering, and knowledge management. Considers future possibilities and defines a new view of what constitutes effective organizational design in management.…

A study trip to USA and Canada was undertaken in October 2000 with support from the German Marshall Fund. The purpose of the trip was to learn about performance planning and performance indicators in the area of transportation and environment. The report describe findings from the trip in the fol......A study trip to USA and Canada was undertaken in October 2000 with support from the German Marshall Fund. The purpose of the trip was to learn about performance planning and performance indicators in the area of transportation and environment. The report describe findings from the trip...... in the following areas: how performance planning for transportation and environment is conducted in the US and Canada at federal, state and municipal level, to what extent performance planning serve as an instrument to integrate environmental and sustainability goals in transportation policy which specific...... indicators are used to measure the environmental sustainability of transportation systems and policies in the two North American countries....

The main subjects of this research are corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability reporting. The aim of this study is to describe the contents and appearance of some of the most sustainable companies' sustainability reports. The leaders in CSR were selected from five well known global sustainability indices. A total of 29 companies' CSR reports from different industries and countries were selected for the study. Additional nine companies were included in the analysis of the best...

Colorado Power Electronics (CPE) has built an innovative modular PPU for Hall thrusters, including discharge, magnet, heater and keeper supplies, and an interface module. This high-performance PPU offers resonant circuit topologies, magnetics design, modularity, and a stable and sustained operation during severe Hall effect thruster current oscillations. Laboratory testing has demonstrated discharge module efficiency of 96 percent, which is considerably higher than current state of the art.

at the University of Copenhagen that attacks this triple challenge of increased performance, transparency and productivity in the financial sector by a novel integration of financial mathematics, domain-specific language technology, parallel functional programming, and emerging massively parallel hardware. HIPERFIT......The world of finance faces the computational performance challenge of massively expanding data volumes, extreme response time requirements, and compute-intensive complex (risk) analyses. Simultaneously, new international regulatory rules require considerably more transparency and external...... auditability of financial institutions, including their software systems. To top it off, increased product variety and customisation necessitates shorter software development cycles and higher development productivity. In this paper, we report about HIPERFIT, a recently etablished strategic research center...

Globalisation has created both drivers and pressure for Chinese organisations to enhance their business performance as well as environmental performance. Green and lean practice is emerging as a critical approach for Chinese organisations to achieve sustainable development and improve organisational performance. By conducting empirical studies from 172 respondents on green and lean practice in different Chinese organisations, this research shows how green and lean practice affects organisatio...

We have developed Mo adsorbents for natural Mo(n, {gamma}){sup 99}Mo-{sup 99m}Tc generator. Among them, we called the highest performance adsorbent PZC that could adsorb about 250 mg-Mo/g. In this report, we will show the structure, adsorption mechanism of Mo, and the other useful properties of PZC when you carry out the examination of Mo adsorption and elution of {sup 99m}Tc. (author)

Highperformance schools are facilities that improve the learning environment while saving energy, resources, and money. The key is understanding the lifetime value of highperformance schools and effectively managing priorities, time, and budget.

Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) designs are considered which may have very high gains (approximately 1000) and low power requirements (<100 TW) for input energies of approximately one megajoule. These include targets having very low density shells, ultra thin shells, central ignitors, magnetic insulation, and non-ablative acceleration

Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) target designs are considered which may have very high gains (approximately 1000) and low power requirements (< 100 TW) for input energies of approximately one megajoule. These include targets having very low density shells, ultra thin shells, central ignitors, magnetic insulation, and non-ablative acceleration

A fuel-pellet composition is disclosed for use in fast breeder reactors. Uranium carbide particles are mixed with a powder of uraniumplutonium carbides having a stable microstructure. The resulting mixture is formed into fuel pellets. The pellets thus produced exhibit a relatively low propensity to swell while maintaining a high density

In this report the authors present a brief overview of the methods that are presently in use for evaluating sustainability. They discuss more deeply the pros and cons of the various methods, with a strong focus on the LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) method. Given is an overview of the available literature

Full Text Available This paper discusses the notion of performance and its appropriation within the research fields related to sustainability and computational design, focusing on the design processes of the architectural and urban fields. Recently, terms such as “performance oriented design” or “performance driven architecture”, especially when related to sustainability, have been used by many authors and professionals as an attempt to engender project guidelines based on simulation processes and systematic use of digital tools. In this context, the notion of performance has basically been understood as the way in which an action is fulfilled, agreeing to contemporary discourses of efficiency and optimization – in this circumstance it is considered that a building or urban area “performs” if it fulfills certain objective sustainability evaluation criteria, reduced to mathematical parameters. This paper intends to broaden this understanding by exploring new theoretical interpretations, referring to etymological investigation, historical research, and literature review, based on authors from different areas and on the case study of the solar houses academic competition, Solar Decathlon. This initial analysis is expected to contribute to the emergence of new forms of interpretation of the performance concept, relativizing the notion of the “body” that “performs” in different manners, thus enhancing its appropriation and use within the fields of sustainability and computational design.

Full Text Available The objective of this study is to compare the performance of traditional investment funds and Exchange traded funds (ETFs, which benchmarks are Ibovespa, IBrX and Sustainability Indexes, as well as free funds using daily frequency data covering the period from 20 June 2012 to 31 October 2013. The survey is descriptive with a quantitative approach. Analyses were performed using the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM and the Sharpe Ratio (1966. In order to obtain an index of ETFs linked to sustainability, the nomenclature and prospectus of each ETF were analyzed to see which ones were linked to this sector. Then the average return of these funds was calculated, weighted by its Net Asset Value, generating a series of the same period and frequency of others. The results show that the funds linked to sustainability and corporate governance indices are one of the best investment options, surpassed only by free funds.

Full Text Available Biomimicry is a novel interdisciplinary field that mimics nature’s best ideas and processes to solve human problems. The objective of this article was to do a descriptive documentary analysis of literature in biodiversity and to recommend for business adoption as a sustainableperformance strategy. The research was however based on nine (9 Life’s Principles, which were candidly inspired by nature. The research findings indicated that most business theories and strategies can mimic perfunctorily from nature for them to achieve a sustainableperformance. The research was quite a conceptual and therefore did not offer direct practical proposition because its value was a descriptive of the ideas and strategies from nature and to outline its fundamental principles since biodiversity has track record of sustainability without men’s interference which humanity can also mimic

The Scandinavian countries have been strong supporters of the UN Global Compact (UNGC) since the official launch in year 2000. This is best evidenced by the level of adoption of the UNGC, which is the most widely adopted broad sustainability-reporting standard in Scandinavia (Kjaergaard, submitted...... - in review). And since the UNGC in 2010 introduced the differentiation framework to their reporting standard, a significant number of Scandinavian corporations has chosen to report on an Advanced Level and self-assess their SustainabilityPerformance. Hence, in times where international opinion makers like...... element in assessing SustainabilityPerformance with the criteria for Advanced Level reporting in the UNGC differentiation framework. Though, previous empirical research by Kjaergaard (submitted, in review) has demonstrated that although the introduction of this framework generally should be acknowledged...

If you're like most developers, you rely heavily on JavaScript to build interactive and quick-responding web applications. The problem is that all of those lines of JavaScript code can slow down your apps. This book reveals techniques and strategies to help you eliminate performance bottlenecks during development. You'll learn how to improve execution time, downloading, interaction with the DOM, page life cycle, and more. Yahoo! frontend engineer Nicholas C. Zakas and five other JavaScript experts -- Ross Harmes, Julien Lecomte, Steven Levithan, Stoyan Stefanov, and Matt Sweeney -- demonstra

In thermoacoustic systems heat is converted into acoustic energy and vice versa. These systems use inert gases as working medium and have no moving parts which makes the thermoacoustic technology a serious alternative to produce mechanical or electrical power, cooling power, and heating in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. A thermoacoustic Stirling heat engine is designed and built which achieves a record performance of 49% of the Carnot efficiency. The design and performance of the engine is presented. The engine has no moving parts and is made up of few simple components.

To identify barriers to maintaining and applying capabilities of US high-level isolation units (HLIUs) used during the Ebola virus disease outbreak, during 2016 we surveyed HLIUs. HLIUs identified sustainability challenges and reported the highly infectious diseases they would treat. HLIUs expended substantial resources in development but must strategize models of sustainability to maintain readiness.

Service only supply chain (SOSC) concept is service supply chain (SSC) implementation on pure services. The globalization and stakeholder pressure makes operation of SSC should give the attention to the environment effect, community, economic and intangibility assets. SOSC performance measurement (SOSCPM) may be developed for measuring of performance for sustainability aspects and intangibility assets to meet customer satisfaction. This article discusses sustainable SOSCPM based on balanced scorecard (BSC), include sustainability aspects, intangibility and relations between perspectives and indicators. From literature review, it is found 34 performance indicators that must be confirm to expert and SC actors by survey. From survey validation using weighted average and level of consensus, it is found 29 valid indicators for processed by DEMATEL. From DEMATEL, it is found 26 indicators can be used on sustainable SOSCPM. Furthermore, innovation and growth perspective most influence to other, and customer perspective most important. Intangibility indicators incorporated on innovation and growth perspective very related with human resources. Finally, relations between perspectives and indicator used to design of BSC strategy maps.

The Healthy and HighPerformance Schools Act of 2002 has set specific federal guidelines for school design, and developed a federal/state partnership program to assist local districts in their school planning. According to the Collaborative for HighPerformance Schools (CHPS), high-performance schools are, among other things, healthy, comfortable,…

The sustainable development is a vital measure to alleviate the greenhouse gas effect, global warming and any other environment issues. The sustainable neighbourhood concept is not new in Malaysia, However, the concept still needs attention and awareness from the stakeholders. This paper discusses on the sustainable neighbourhood elements specifically green elements application on the high rise low cost housing in Malaysia. Malaysia should have focused sustainable neighbourhood planning and design especially on the high rise low cost housing therefore the future generation can be benefited from this type development.

To identify baseline behavioral and physiologic markers that associate with individual differences in sustained attention during sleep deprivation. In a retrospective study, ocular, electrocardiogram, and electroencephalogram (EEG) measures were compared in subjects who were characterized as resilient (n = 15) or vulnerable (n = 15) to the effects of total sleep deprivation on sustained attention. Chronobiology and Sleep Laboratory, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore. Healthy volunteers aged 22-32 years from the general population. Subjects were kept awake for at least 26 hours under constant environmental conditions. Every 2 hours, sustained attention was assessed using a 10-minute psychomotor vigilance task (PVT). During baseline sleep and recovery sleep, EEG slow wave activity was similar in resilient versus vulnerable subjects, suggesting that individual differences in vulnerability to sleep loss were not related to differences in homeostatic sleep regulation. Rather, irrespective of time elapsed since wake, subjects who were vulnerable to sleep deprivation exhibited slower and more variable PVT response times, lower and more variable heart rate, and higher and more variable EEG spectral power in the theta frequency band (6.0-7.5 Hz). Performance decrements in sustained attention during sleep deprivation associate with instability in behavioral and physiologic measures at baseline. Small individual differences in sustained attention that are present at baseline are amplified during prolonged wakefulness, thus contributing to large between-subjects differences in performance and sleepiness.

Full Text Available This study probed into the impact of entrepreneurial leadership dimensions (i.e., responsibility, accountability, analytical thinking, and emotional intelligence on the performance and sustainability of micro-enterprises in Kelantan, Malaysia, through the lens of resource-based view (RBV theory. Through the implementation of a cross-sectional design, data were randomly gathered from 403 micro-entrepreneurs whose names appeared in the list of low-income households registered under “Majlis Amanah Rakyat” Kelantan and “Majlis Agama Islam Dan Adat Istiadat” Kelantan. The quantitative data were collected during structured interview sessions held between September and December 2017. The findings of the study revealed that the aspects of responsibility, accountability, and emotional intelligence exhibited significantly positive effects on micro-enterprise performance; while accountability, analytical thinking, and micro-enterprise performance displayed a significantly positive influence on sustainability among micro-enterprises owned by low-income households in Kelantan, Malaysia. The outcomes further portrayed a significant mediating effect of micro-enterprise performance on the correlations of responsibility, analytical thinking, and emotional intelligence with micro-enterprise sustainability. The outcomes of this study extend the scope of RBV theory and simultaneously enhance our understanding pertaining to leadership, performance, and sustainability interplay, particularly within the context of micro-enterprises in emerging economies. As such, it is recommended that the government of Malaysia formulate and to adopt policies that promote varied entrepreneurial-leadership-related traits among budding micro-entrepreneurs, which may not only boost sustainabilityperformance among firms, but also encourage low-income household heads to actively engage in more entrepreneurial activities.

textabstractThis paper is based on research in Chinese cities. It addresses the issues related to urban environmental performance and sustainability in emerging Chinese cities. The result shows that: (1) To basically control the degradation of urban environment the minimum per capita GDP should be

This background document concentrates on technical and managerial aspects of Environmental, Health & Safety Performance (EHS) control in the cement industry. It gives an overview of options for improvement toward a sustainable cement production in 2020. Energy consumption and use of alternative

Sustainability of the built environment is receiving much attention in recent times, mainly because the concept is inextricably linked with several key global issues e.g. economic, environmental, housing etc. An important aspect of these has to do with the assessment of the performance of the

Full Text Available In this paper, we focus on the sustainability and economic performance of the renewable energy sector of Romania. In our analysis, we have used Total Quality Management (TQM model, which is an economic modern tool used for improving the quality of management for all companies. The aim of this study is to bring into discussion the conceptualized TQM model of Edward Deming underlying different stages of its evolution as it is described in the economic literature. Conceptual model is applied in a case study of the renewable energy sector of Romania. The quantitative research evaluates the impact of the total quality management to achieve the sustainable development, performance objectives and the competitive advantage of the companies in the renewable energy sector. Data was collected through a survey and the questionnaire was addressed to the management and employees in the renewable energy sector. Structural equation modelling (SEM was used and the hypotheses were tested by partial least square (PLS equations. Data was analyzed through the Smart PLS 3 software. The main contribution of this paper is to identify and evaluate the relationship among sustainable development, economic performance of the companies and TQM model indicators. The conclusions of our research are in line with the existing literature and confirm the theoretical assumptions, underlining the fact that the undertaking’s performance and sustainable development is a direct consequence of the combination among a series of factors like decisional power quality, motivated workforce as well as integrity of operational process.

Army Research Office Grant #DAAH04-93-G-0453 has supported the purchase of 24 additional compute nodes that were installed in the Intel iPsC/860 hypercube at the Univesity Of Kentucky (UK), rendering a 32-node multiprocessor. This facility has allowed the investigators to explore and extend the boundaries of electromagnetic simulation for important areas of defense concerns including microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) design/analysis and electromagnetic materials research and development. The iPSC/860 has also provided an ideal platform for MMIC circuit simulations. A number of parallel methods based on direct time-domain solutions of Maxwell's equations have been developed on the iPSC/860, including a parallel finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm, and a parallel planar generalized Yee-algorithm (PGY). The iPSC/860 has also provided an ideal platform on which to develop a 'virtual laboratory' to numerically analyze, scientifically study and develop new types of materials with beneficial electromagnetic properties. These materials simulations are capable of assembling hundreds of microscopic inclusions from which an electromagnetic full-wave solution will be obtained in toto. This powerful simulation tool has enabled research of the full-wave analysis of complex multicomponent MMIC devices and the electromagnetic properties of many types of materials to be performed numerically rather than strictly in the laboratory.

-resolution internal D/A converters are required. Unit-element mismatch-shaping D/A converters are analyzed, and the concept of mismatch-shaping is generalized to include scaled-element D/A converters. Several types of scaled-element mismatch-shaping D/A converters are proposed. Simulations show that, when implemented...... in a standard CMOS technology, they can be designed to yield 100 dB performance at 10 times oversampling. The proposed scaled-element mismatch-shaping D/A converters are well suited for use as the feedback stage in oversampled delta-sigma quantizers. It is, however, not easy to make full use of their potential......-order difference of the output signal from the loop filter's first integrator stage. This technique avoids the need for accurate matching of analog and digital filters that characterizes the MASH topology, and it preserves the signal-band suppression of quantization errors. Simulations show that quantizers...

This book provides comprehensive coverage of the current state-of-the-art in soft magnetic materials and related applications, with particular focus on amorphous and nanocrystalline magnetic wires and ribbons and sensor applications. Expert chapters cover preparation, processing, tuning of magnetic properties, modeling, and applications. Cost-effective soft magnetic materials are required in a range of industrial sectors, such as magnetic sensors and actuators, microelectronics, cell phones, security, automobiles, medicine, health monitoring, aerospace, informatics, and electrical engineering. This book presents both fundamentals and applications to enable academic and industry researchers to pursue further developments of these key materials. This highly interdisciplinary volume represents essential reading for researchers in materials science, magnetism, electrodynamics, and modeling who are interested in working with soft magnets. Covers magnetic microwires, sensor applications, amorphous and nanocrystalli...

Full Text Available A high density polyethylene (HDPE matrix was melt compounded with 2 vol% of dimethyldichlorosilane treated fumed silica nanoparticles. Nanocomposite fibers were prepared by melt spinning through a co-rotating twin screw extruder and drawing at 125°C in air. Thermo-mechanical and morphological properties of the resulting fibers were then investigated. The introduction of nanosilica improved the drawability of the fibers, allowing the achievement of higher draw ratios with respect to the neat matrix. The elastic modulus and creep stability of the fibers were remarkably improved upon nanofiller addition, with a retention of the pristine tensile properties at break. Transmission electronic microscope (TEM images evidenced that the original morphology of the silica aggregates was disrupted by the applied drawing.

Full Text Available In Malaysia, the growth of the Islamic financial industry has increased tremendously in line with the Government’s ambition to make Malaysia as an international hub for Islamic finance since 2010. With the increasing number of foreign players in this industry plus with the increasing demand from domestic and foreign customers would further enhance the possibility for Malaysia to achieve this ambition. Currently, according to the Economic Transformation Programme, 2012 Malaysia is the world’s third largest market for Shariah assets that cover Islamic banks, Takaful, and sukuk. Malaysia as one of the main contributors to the global Islamic financial assets with Islamic assets in Malaysia grew by 23.8% in 2011 from RM350.8bil to RM434.6bil. The issues of predicting the performance and the survival of Islamic Banks in Malaysia become amongst crucial issues in academic research. By employing multi – layer perceptron neural network and pooled regression, we found that total assets/ size of the Islamic banks (GROWTH have high weightage and significantly influence in predicting the performance and the survival of Islamic banks in Malaysia. With the increasing number of Islamic banking institutions in Malaysia, this study can give insight on the sustainability of the Islamic banking system in Malaysia for the benefit of the investors, shareholder and depositors.

This book presents the state-of-the-art in supercomputer simulation. It includes the latest findings from leading researchers using systems from the HighPerformance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS). The reports cover all fields of computational science and engineering ranging from CFD to computational physics and from chemistry to computer science with a special emphasis on industrially relevant applications. Presenting findings of one of Europe’s leading systems, this volume covers a wide variety of applications that deliver a high level of sustainedperformance. The book covers the main methods in high-performance computing. Its outstanding results in achieving the best performance for production codes are of particular interest for both scientists and engineers. The book comes with a wealth of color illustrations and tables of results.

Sustainability of technology is a multifaceted endeavor and a main requirement from industry is to make it a profitable business case with clearly defined targets. To achieve that, a new assessment framework and applicable method [1] is presented which has been developed closely with industry. It.......g. “transportation”) down to smallest production units by using activity-based target setting in a consistent way to lowers risks in the planning phase of products and production....

Full Text Available As the scale of tourism grows, the resource use threatens to become unsustainable. Withought environmental responsibility the levels of cheaper mass tourism will increase, forcing more “nature-based” tourism to move on to new destinations. This scenario is opposite to the “Croatian Tourism Development by 2010” strategy. With a favourable geographic position, almost at the heart of Europe, Istria has always represented a bridge connecting the Middle European continental area with the Mediterranean. This area is the most visited Croatian tourist region with 27% of all visitors and 35% of time spent in all of Croatia. The Croatian National Bank’s preliminary figures for 2007 show that international tourism generated 18.4% of Croatian GDP. For these reasons the Istrian tourism industry can not ignore environmental issues in its management and requires the informed participation of all relevant stakeholders (according to the Agenda 21 for tourism industry. Properly planned tourism development, combined with environmental protection, produces the concept of sustainable tourism. Environmentally sustainable form of tourism represents a step forward from "sea and sun" mass tourism developed at the coastal part of Istria. There are a myriad of definitions for Sustainable Tourism, including eco-tourism, green travel, environmentally and culturally responsible tourism, fair trade and ethical travel. Mentioned selective tourism forms are adopted as the concept of the present and future Istrian destination development.

The sustainable development of electric power systems rely on three main drivers: the security of supply, the competitiveness and the protection of the environment. For this purpose the promotion of endogenous energy sources, mainly the renewable ones, should be underlined. Still, most of renewable energy sources raise very sensitive issues concerning the security of supply, due to its randomness and unpredictability. The wind power, currently in its fast growing development, plays a relevant role on this matter. From the demand-side perspective, there is also a lot to do regarding the promotion of more efficient use of energy as well as mechanisms that contribute to security of supply. This paper aims to present guidelines for the selection of the most adequate solutions regarding: sustainable evolution of renewable generation technologies, based on the most meritorious resources under economic and security of supply assessments; complementary energy storage systems that allow the integration of intermittent generation ensuring adequate security of supply levels; and sustainable evolution of demand, based on DSM measures selected from different available alternatives. (author)

Corrosion, erosion, oxidation, and fouling by scale deposits impose critical issues in selecting the metal components used at geothermal power plants operating at brine temperatures up to 300 C. Replacing these components is very costly and time consuming. Currently, components made of titanium alloy and stainless steel commonly are employed for dealing with these problems. However, another major consideration in using these metals is not only that they are considerably more expensive than carbon steel, but also the susceptibility of corrosion-preventing passive oxide layers that develop on their outermost surface sites to reactions with brine-induced scales, such as silicate, silica, and calcite. Such reactions lead to the formation of strong interfacial bonds between the scales and oxide layers, causing the accumulation of multiple layers of scales, and the impairment of the plant component's function and efficacy; furthermore, a substantial amount of time is entailed in removing them. This cleaning operation essential for reusing the components is one of the factors causing the increase in the plant's maintenance costs. If inexpensive carbon steel components could be coated and lined with cost-effective high-hydrothermal temperature stable, anti-corrosion, -oxidation, and -fouling materials, this would improve the power plant's economic factors by engendering a considerable reduction in capital investment, and a decrease in the costs of operations and maintenance through optimized maintenance schedules.

Full Text Available In a global market, food companies engaged in sustainable development must now integrate the economic and social component. However the tools to assess it are lacking. Several theoretical frameworks have been developed to define social sustainability and its implementation. The attributional approaches, pathways or capabilities methods have emerged, based on a functional unit of a good or service along the supply chain. This paper proposes a new method to assess social economic and territorial performances of a food chain as a whole on a Territory. It is divided into four components: (i dignity and well-being of workers, (ii contribution to local life, (iii fairness and integrity of business practices, and (iv creation of material and intangible wealth. 50 criteria are used according to international, national or sectoral references. This generic method applicable to any sector of processed food products aims to identify where are the areas of improvement to qualify the sector as socially sustainable. An application to the wine Beaujolais and Burgundy wine was performed from surveys of 35 production and trade operators in 2014. The results show that the sector is particularly effective for the promotion of the territory, local life participation, loyalty and integrity of business practices; some improvement is still possible for the welfare of workers and the creation of material wealth. This method can be coupled with the environmental performance determined by the life cycle analysis in order to assess the sustainability in its entirety.

Utilities are under intense pressure to reduce their production costs in order to compete in the increasingly deregulated marketplace. They need fuel, which can deliver highperformance to meet demanding operating strategies. GE's latest BWR fuel design, GE14, provides that highperformance capability. GE's product introduction process assures that this performance will be delivered reliably, with little risk to the utility. (author)

This book presents the state-of-the-art in supercomputer simulation. It includes the latest findings from leading researchers using systems from the HighPerformance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) in 2016. The reports cover all fields of computational science and engineering ranging from CFD to computational physics and from chemistry to computer science with a special emphasis on industrially relevant applications. Presenting findings of one of Europe’s leading systems, this volume covers a wide variety of applications that deliver a high level of sustainedperformance. The book covers the main methods in high-performance computing. Its outstanding results in achieving the best performance for production codes are of particular interest for both scientists and engineers. The book comes with a wealth of color illustrations and tables of results.

Full Text Available Transformational leadership has drawn extensive attention in management research. In this field, the influence of transformational leadership on employee performance is an important branch. Recent research indicates that organizational citizenship behavior plays a mediating role between transformational leadership and employee performance. However, some of these findings contradict each other. Given the background where greater attention is being paid to transformational leadership in the construction industry, this research aims to find the degree of the influence of transformational leadership on employee sustainableperformance, as well as the mediating role of organizational citizenship behavior. A total of 389 questionnaires were collected from contractors and analyzed via structural equation modeling. The findings reveal that employee sustainableperformance is positively influenced by transformational leadership. In addition, more than half of that influence is mediated by their organizational citizenship behavior. These findings remind project managers of the need to pay close attention to transformational leadership, to cultivate organizational citizenship behavior, and thereby to eventually improve employee’s sustainableperformance.

Full Text Available The rapid urbanization process has brought problems to China, such as traffic congestion, air pollution, water pollution and resources scarcity. Sustainable urbanization is commonly appreciated as an effective way to promote the sustainable development. The proper understanding of the sustainable urbanization performance is critical to provide governments with support in making urban development strategies and policies for guiding the sustainable development. This paper utilizes the method of Structural equation modeling (SEM to establish an assessment model for measuring sustainable urbanization performance. Four unobserved endogenous variables, economic variable, social variable, environment variable and resource variable, and 21 observed endogenous variables comprise the SEM model. A case study of the 31 provinces in China demonstrates the validity of the SEM model and the analysis results indicated that the assessment model could help make more effective policies and strategies for improving urban sustainability by recognizing the statue of sustainable urbanization.

This document is part of a larger, programmatic effort to assist federal agencies in taking action and changing their institutions to achieve and maintain federal sustainability goals, while meeting their mission goals. FEMP is developing guidance for federal agency efforts to enable institutional behavior change for sustainability, and for making sustainability “business as usual.” The driving requirement for this change is Executive Order (EO) 13514, Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance. FEMP emphasizes strategies for increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy utilization as critical components of attaining sustainability, and promotes additional non-energy action pathways contained in EO 13514. This report contributes to the larger goal by laying out the conceptual and evidentiary underpinnings of guidance to federal agencies. Conceptual frameworks focus and organize the development of guidance. We outline a series of progressively refined conceptual frameworks, including a multi-layer approach, key steps in sustainability implementation, a process view of specific approaches to institutional change, the agency Strategic SustainabilityPerformance Plans (SSPPs), and concepts related to context-specific rules, roles and tools for sustainability. Additionally, we tap pertinent bodies of literature in drawing eight evidence-based principles for behavior change. These principles are important foundations upon which to build in selecting strategies to effect change in organizations. Taken together, this report presents a suite of components that inform the training materials, presentations, web site, and other products that provide guidance to federal agencies.

.... Highperformance Fortran (HPF) is a relative new addition to the Fortran dialect It is an attempt to provide an efficient high-level Fortran parallel programming language for the latest generation of been debatable...

Full Text Available This research is aimed to invetigate the effect of Sustainability Report Disclosure to the Firm’s market performance. Three material aspects disclosed in the Sustainability report such as economics (EC, environmental (EN, and social aspect (SC are used as the independent variables in this research and, furthermore, the dependent variable is the market performance which is proxied by using Tobin’s Q. This researchs was conducted using mainstream positivistic quantitative methods to test the three formulated hypotheses. The samples taken were 44 observations from all listed companies in the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX that reveal sustainability reports using GRI-G4 guidelines. This guideline is the latest version issued by the Global Reporting Innitiative (GRI, which can be implemented starting from 2013. The results showed that economicss, environmental, and social aspects have positively significant influence to the companies market performance. The practical implication of this research is the value given by society in term of the company image to those companies which disclosure their activities related to economics, social, and environment activities affects their company performance.

HighPerformance Grinding and Advanced Cutting Tools discusses the fundamentals and advances in highperformance grinding processes, and provides a complete overview of newly-developing areas in the field. Topics covered are grinding tool formulation and structure, grinding wheel design and conditioning and applications using highperformance grinding wheels. Also included are heat treatment strategies for grinding tools, using grinding tools for high speed applications, laser-based and diamond dressing techniques, high-efficiency deep grinding, VIPER grinding, and new grinding wheels.

The Strategy Guideline: HighPerformance Residential Lighting has been developed to provide a tool for the understanding and application of highperformance lighting in the home. The highperformance lighting strategies featured in this guide are drawn from recent advances in commercial lighting for application to typical spaces found in residential buildings. This guide offers strategies to greatly reduce lighting energy use through the application of high quality fluorescent and light emitting diode (LED) technologies. It is important to note that these strategies not only save energy in the home but also serve to satisfy the homeowner's expectations for high quality lighting.

Owing to their high energy density and power density, supercapacitors exhibit great potential as high-performance energy sources for advanced technologies. Recently, carbon nanomaterials (especially, carbon nanotubes and graphene) have been widely investigated as effective electrodes in supercapacitors due to their high specific surface area, excellent electrical and mechanical properties. This article summarizes the recent progresses on the development of high-performance supercapacitors bas...

Over the last 20 years, there has been a growing requirement by governments around the world for organisations to adopt more sustainable practices. Wastewater treatment is no exception, with many currently used systems requiring large capital investment, land area and power consumption. High rate algal ponds offer a sustainable, efficient and lower cost option to the systems currently in use. They are shallow, mixed lagoon based systems, which aim to maximise wastewater treatment by creating optimal conditions for algal growth and oxygen production-the key processes which remove nitrogen and organic waste in HRAP systems. This design means they can treat wastewater to an acceptable quality within a fifth of time of other lagoon systems while using 50% less surface area. This smaller land requirement decreases both the construction costs and evaporative water losses, making larger volumes of treated water available for beneficial reuse. They are ideal for rural, peri-urban and remote communities as they require minimum power and little on-site management. This review will address the history of and current trends in high rate algal pond development and application; a comparison of their performance with other systems when treating various wastewaters; and discuss their potential for production of added-value products. Finally, the review will consider areas requiring further research.

Evidence suggests that Lean, Six Sigma and Green approaches make a positive contribution to the economic, social and environmental (i.e. sustainability) performance of organisations. However, evidence also suggests that organisations have found their integration and implementation challenging....... The purpose of this research is therefore to present a framework that methodically guides companies through a five stages and sixteen steps process to effectively integrate and implement the Green, Lean and Six Sigma approaches to improve their sustainabilityperformance. To achieve this, a critical review...... of the existing literature in the subject area was conducted to build a research gap, and subsequently develop the methodological framework proposed. The paper presents the results from the application of the proposed framework in four organisations with different sizes and operating in a diverse range...

Full Text Available This article aims to compare the performance, through certain financial indicators, including companies in the guide of the 500 biggest and best companies of Exame Magazine, forming part of the Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE and companies who do not. The primary purpose of ISE is to see the return of a portfolio composed of shares of companies committed to social responsibility and corporate sustainability. This research is classified as being descriptive and largely qualitative. The financial indicators examined in this study were: sales (value and growth, Net Income, Profitability, Net Working Capital, Liquidity, General Debt, Long Term Debt, EBITA and Indicators of export. After the analysis we can conclude that the companies participating in the ISE have greater potential for sales and exports. Companies that are not part of the ISE have better financial performance.

Levels of swimming activity in fishes have been divided into three categories on the basis of the time a given speed can be maintained before the onset of fatigue (Beamish, 1978): sustained (more than 200 min), prolonged (20 s to 200 min) and burst swimming (less than 20 s). The locomotory capacity of a given species reflects both its lifestyle and its body form, although definitions of performance may vary. It is generally accepted that only the aerobic ('red') muscle fibres should be active at truly sustainable swimming speeds, i.e. at speeds that can be maintained indefinitely without fatigue. However, the standard laboratory method of evaluating the maximum sustainable swimming speed (Ucrit; Brett, 1964) almost certainly entails the recruitment of at least some of the rapidly fatigable fast glycolytic ('white') fibres at sub-critical speeds and undoubtedly complicates the evaluation of maximal cardiovascular performance. It would therefore be useful to have an objective and reproducible measure of truly sustainableperformance that, by definition, relies solely on aerobic muscle activity. Electromyography (EMG) has been used to examine the pattern of white muscle recruitment following thermal acclimation in striped bass, Morine saxatilis (Sisson and Sidell, 1987). We wished to incorporate this method into a study of the acclimatory responses to chronic changes in environmental temperature of the cardiovascular and locomotory systems in rainbow trout (Wilson and Egginton, 1992). The present communication presents results on the cardiovascular performance and blood chemistry, at rest and during maximal aerobic exercise, of rainbow trout acclimated to 11 °C, as a validation of the methodology currently in use with fish acclimated to seasonal temperature extremes (Taylor et al. 1992). Different acclimation temperatures are known to produce compensatory changes in the relative proportions of red and white muscle mass (Sidell and Moerland, 1989). The aim of these

The globalization of the economy imposes a new order on the Moroccan company marked by the opening of markets and the appearance of new international competitors. One of the factors of differentiation is technological and organizational innovation. The company is then obliged to improve its management to ensure the necessary balance between these various expectations and the imperative need to sustain its performance to establish its legitimacy and creates lasting value. In this context, ...

This is the final report for the UNC component of the SciDAD Institute for SustainedPerformance, Energy, and Resilience. In this report, we describe activities on the SUPER project at RENCI at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While we focus particularly on UNC, we touch on project-wide activities as well as, on interactions with, and impacts on, other projects.

The author examines a team development approach to management that creates shared commitments to performance improvement by focusing the attention of managers on individual workers and their task accomplishments. It uses the "high-performance equation" to help managers confront shared beliefs and concerns about performance and develop realistic…

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is both the largest science and energy laboratory of the US Department of Energy (DOE) and one of the oldest national laboratories still operating at its original site. These characteristics provide the Sustainable Campus Initiative (SCI) both a unique opportunity and a unique challenge to integrate sustainability into facilities and activities. As outlined in this report, SCI is leveraging the outcomes of ORNL’s DOE-sponsored research and development programs to maximize the efficient use of energy and natural resources across ORNL. Wherever possible, ORNL is integrating technical innovations into new and existing facilities, systems, and processes with a widespread approach to achieving Executive Order 13514. ORNL continues to pursue and deploy innovative solutions and initiatives to advance regional, national, and worldwide sustainability and continues to transform its culture and engage employees in supporting sustainability at work, at home, and in the community. Table 1 summarizes ORNL's FY 2013 performance and planned actions to attain future goals. ORNL has achieved numerous successes during FY 2013, which are described in detail throughout this document.

Full Text Available Academics’ and practitioners’ interest in sustainable supply chain management has received great concern in recent years. The application of biaxially-oriented polypropylene (BOPP plastic film has had a significant influence on the economic, environmental and social performance of supply chain management. However, research on the integration of these three sustainable dimensions is still rare in this field. In this paper, we identify sustainability criteria based on a triple bottom line approach (economic benefit, environmental protection and social responsibility from the supply chain perspective, develop a hybrid multi-criteria decision making framework to evaluate the criteria and select alternatives and apply the proposed approach to a real case study at a focal BOPP plastic film company in China. In the framework, a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP is used to determine the performance criteria weights and a fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (FTOPSIS is applied to rank the alternatives. The case study finds that the economic dimension was the most important aspect with environmental second and social third. The results also verify the effectiveness of the proposed framework. This paper develops an effective and systematic approach for decision makers to conduct evaluations and select optimal alternatives for focal plastic film companies.

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) continue as a twenty-first century subterranean and almost invisible scourge internationally. TBI care systems provide a safety net for survival, recovery, and reintegration into social communities from this scourge, particularly in Canada, the European Union, and the USA. This paper examines the underlying issues of systemic performance and sustainability of TBI care systems, in the light of decreasing care resources and increasing demands for services. This paper reviews the extant literature on TBI care systems, systems reengineering, and emergency leadership literature. This paper presents a seven care layer paradigm, which forms the essence of systemic performance in the care of patients with TBIs. It also identifies five key strategic drivers that hold promise for the future systemic sustainability of TBI care systems. Transformational leadership and engagement from the international emergency medical community is the key to generating positive change. The sustainability/performance care framework is relevant and pertinent for consideration internationally and in the context of other emergency medical populations.

Juan, Yi-Kai [Department of Architecture, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST) (China); Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness, Stanford University (United States); Gao, Peng [Department of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, Tongji University (China); Wang, Jie [Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness, Stanford University (United States)

2010-03-15

Energy consumption of buildings accounts for around 20-40% of all energy consumed in advanced countries. Over the last decade, more and more global organizations are investing significant resources to create sustainably built environments, emphasizing sustainable building renovation processes to reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. This study develops an integrated decision support system to assess existing office building conditions and to recommend an optimal set of sustainable renovation actions, considering trade-offs between renovation cost, improved building quality, and environmental impacts. A hybrid approach that combines A* graph search algorithm with genetic algorithms (GA) is used to analyze all possible renovation actions and their trade-offs to develop the optimal solution. A two-stage system validation is performed to demonstrate the practical application of the hybrid approach: zero-one goal programming (ZOGP) and genetic algorithms are adopted to validate the effectiveness of the algorithm. A real-world renovation project is introduced to validate differences in energy performance projected for the renovation solution suggested by the system. The results reveal that the proposed hybrid system is more computationally effective than either ZOGP or GA alone. The system's suggested renovation actions would provide substantial energy performance improvements to the real project if implemented. (author)

Utilities are under intense pressure to reduce their production costs in order to compete in the increasingly deregulated marketplace. They need fuel, which can deliver highperformance to meet demanding operating strategies. GE's latest BWR fuel design, GE14, provides that highperformance capability. GE's product introduction process assures that this performance will be delivered reliably, with little risk to the utility. (author)

One of the main targets of data analytics is unstructured data, which primarily involves textual data. High-performance processing of textual data is non-trivial. We present the HPTA library for high-performance text analytics. The library helps programmers to map textual data to a dense numeric representation, which can be handled more efficiently. HPTA encapsulates three performance optimizations: (i) efficient memory management for textual data, (ii) parallel computation on associative dat...

The high-stress, fast-paced environment of combat casualty care relies on effective teamwork and communication which translates into quality patient care. A training course was developed for U.S. Navy Fleet Surgical Teams to address these aspects of patient care by emphasizing efficiency and appropriate patient care. An effective training course provides knowledge and skills to pass the course evaluation and sustain the knowledge and skills acquired over time. The course included classroom didactic hours, and hands-on simulation sessions. A pretest was administered before the course, a posttest upon completion, and a sustainment test 5 months following course completion. The evaluation process measured changes in patient time to disposition and critical errors made during patient care. Naval Base San Diego, with resuscitation and surgical simulations carried out within the shipboard medical spaces. United States Navy medical personnel including physicians of various specialties, corpsmen, nurses, and nurse anesthetists deploying aboard ships. Time to disposition improved significantly, 11 ± 3 minutes, from pretest to posttest, and critical errors improved by 4 ± 1 errors per encounter. From posttest to sustainment test, time to disposition increased by 3 ± 1, and critical errors decreased by 1 ± 1. This course showed value in improving teamwork and communication skills of participants, immediately upon completion of the course, and after 5 months had passed. Therefore, with ongoing sustainment activities within 6 months, this course can substantially improve trauma care provided by shipboard deployed Navy medical personnel to wounded service members. Published by Elsevier Inc.

This is an explorative case study that examines how ideas and concepts relating to sustainable development are factored into new approaches to urban governance in Hangzhou. The proposition is that traditional performance assessment procedures combined with innovative surveys of the city government......’s social accountability and with various forms of social participation have created a new framework for urban governance, both conceptually and as a series of practical measures. More specifically, the study examines a dramatic redesign of the performance assessment system in Hangzhou aimed at developing...

Highperformance houses require a high degree of coordination and have significant interdependencies between various systems in order to perform properly, meet customer expectations, and minimize risks for the builder. Responsibility for the key performance attributes is shared across the project team and can be well coordinated through advanced partnering strategies. For highperformance homes, traditional partnerships need to be matured to the next level and be expanded to all members of the project team including trades, suppliers, manufacturers, HERS raters, designers, architects, and building officials as appropriate. This guide is intended for use by all parties associated in the design and construction of highperformance homes. It serves as a starting point and features initial tools and resources for teams to collaborate to continually improve the energy efficiency and durability of new houses.

The performance gap between processors and storage systems has been increasingly critical over the years. Yet the performance disparity remains, and further, storage energy consumption is rapidly becoming a new critical problem. While smarter caching and predictive techniques do much to alleviate this disparity, the problem persists, and data storage remains a growing contributor to latency and energy consumption. Attempts have been made at data layout maintenance, or intelligent physical placement of data, yet in practice, basic heuristics remain predominant. Problems that early studies sought to solve via layout strategies were proven to be NP-Hard, and data layout maintenance today remains more art than science. With unknown potential and a domain inherently full of uncertainty, layout maintenance persists as an area largely untapped by modern systems. But uncertainty in workloads does not imply randomness; access patterns have exhibited repeatable, stable behavior. Predictive information can be gathered, analyzed, and exploited to improve data layouts. Our goal is a dynamic, robust, sustainable predictive engine, aimed at improving existing layouts by replicating data at the storage device level. We present a comprehensive discussion of the design and construction of such a predictive engine, including workload evaluation, where we present and evaluate classical workloads as well as our own highly detailed traces collected over an extended period. We demonstrate significant gains through an initial static grouping mechanism, and compare against an optimal grouping method of our own construction, and further show significant improvement over competing techniques. We also explore and illustrate the challenges faced when moving from static to dynamic (i.e. online) grouping, and provide motivation and solutions for addressing these challenges. These challenges include metadata storage, appropriate predictive collocation, online performance, and physical placement

Full Text Available This paper explores how sustainability influences financial returns and economic development in the Asia-Pacific region and North America, utilizing real data empirically. It is controversial that sustainable activities are related to financial performance. For clarification, we tested hypotheses analyzing sustainability index, seven stock markets, financial data such as ROI, ROIC, and ROA from eleven companies, and GDP/GNI per capita, based on the Asia-Pacific region and North America. The results indicate that both financial return for companies and economic development in the two regions are positively germane to sustainable investment. Besides, we found evidence that sustainable investment impacts economic development based on variance decomposition analysis, depending on GDP per capita between the two regions. This implication will be interesting for both practitioners and researchers regarding the measurement of sustainableperformance.

Full Text Available Brazil is going through a time of reflection about the preservation of natural resources, an issue that is increasingly considered in its agenda. The search for balance between environmental, social and economic aspects has been a challenge for business survival over the years and has led companies to adopt initiatives focused on sustainability. The objective of this article is to analyse how the international scientific production addresses sustainable practices and initiatives and their relationship with organizational performance. Considering this scope, a bibliometric study of the publications located on Web of Science - Social Sciences Citation Index (WoS-SSCI was developed. There were 33 articles identified and selected on the subject. Journals that stand out in quantity of articles and number of citations are the Journal of Cleaner Production and Strategic Management Journal, respectively. Analysing the results, a growing concern about this issue and the increase in publications was noticed after the 2000s. The results found, in general, associate sustainable practices to positive organizational performance, such as increased profit on the product sold, quality improvement, improved reputation, and waste reduction, among others gains identified.

Full Text Available The hospitality industry is facing major challenges, among them the new competition from novel forms of supply in the sharing economy. Airbnb, Homeaway, and Niumba, among other websites offering accommodations, are having an important impact in the sector, changing existing conditions and the market for the traditional hospitality industry. In this context, a strategy based in differentiation can help to prevent drops in revenues and profitability. The main objective of this paper is analyse if commitment towards sustainability has a positive impact on financial performance and can be considered a positive strategy in this new environment. The empirical data refer to a sample of hotels in Barcelona, one of the most important tourist cities in Europe. Our results suggest that there is no clear relationship between sustainability and better financial performance; however, sustainability commitment is associated with a minimum size, which can also have positive effects in terms of economies of scale and finally affect profitability. Hotels more committed to environmental issues are located in areas with a lower density of Airbnb apartments, and this geographical distribution can be more positive than a situation of massive tourist concentration in specific areas with negative externalities for neighbours.

Full Text Available In this paper I wanted to approach the relationship between Total Performances Scorecard and other concepts related to the continuous improvement, namely: Total Quality Management, Balanced Scorecard, Performance Management and Skills Management. Total Performances Scorecard is a holistic concept of improvement and change management. In the TPS concept, improvement, development and learning are treated as cyclic and ethical processes, through which the development of personal skills, organization and internal involving mutually reinforce. Throughout the paper I presented the TPS interference with other concepts for improvement and I analyzed the underlying principles of TPS. I also examined how to use the Balanced Scorecard's instruments to determine the set of comparative indicators in the benchmarking processes.

The program ''Ceramic High-performance Materials'' pursued the objective to understand the chaining of cause and effect in the development of high-performance ceramics. This chain of problems begins with the chemical reactions for the production of powders, comprises the characterization, processing, shaping and compacting of powders, structural optimization, heat treatment, production and finishing, and leads to issues of materials testing and of a design appropriate to the material. The program ''Ceramic High-performance Materials'' has resulted in contributions to the understanding of fundamental interrelationships in terms of materials science, which are summarized in the present volume - broken down into eight special aspects. (orig./RHM)

The worldwide trend of nuclear fuel development is to develop a high burnup and highperformance nuclear fuel with high economies and safety. Because the fuel performance evaluation code, INFRA, has a patent, and the superiority for prediction of fuel performance was proven through the IAEA CRP FUMEX-II program, the INFRA code can be utilized with commercial purpose in the industry. The INFRA code was provided and utilized usefully in the universities and relevant institutes domesticallly and it has been used as a reference code in the industry for the development of the intrinsic fuel rod design code.

In this article explained approach of valuation of intellectual property of Voronezh State Technical University, as her usefulness to increasing the sustainability and ecological safety of high-rise building. High-rise building is main type of buildings in modern cities. They include large volume of material mass, high volume of energy using and high volume of emissions. Using innovation solutions to improving ecology safety of high-rise buildings has large potential to city in whole. Explained in the article methods of calculation of effects helps to value sustainable solutions of present and future generations. Thus usefulness of patents express through usefulness regarding to high-rise building, including for sustainable development.

OAK A271 ADVANCED HIGHPERFORMANCE SOLID WALL BLANKET CONCEPTS. First wall and blanket (FW/blanket) design is a crucial element in the performance and acceptance of a fusion power plant. High temperature structural and breeding materials are needed for high thermal performance. A suitable combination of structural design with the selected materials is necessary for D-T fuel sufficiency. Whenever possible, low afterheat, low chemical reactivity and low activation materials are desired to achieve passive safety and minimize the amount of high-level waste. Of course the selected fusion FW/blanket design will have to match the operational scenarios of highperformance plasma. The key characteristics of eight advanced highperformance FW/blanket concepts are presented in this paper. Design configurations, performance characteristics, unique advantages and issues are summarized. All reviewed designs can satisfy most of the necessary design goals. For further development, in concert with the advancement in plasma control and scrape off layer physics, additional emphasis will be needed in the areas of first wall coating material selection, design of plasma stabilization coils, consideration of reactor startup and transient events. To validate the projected performance of the advanced FW/blanket concepts the critical element is the need for 14 MeV neutron irradiation facilities for the generation of necessary engineering design data and the prediction of FW/blanket components lifetime and availability

) highperformance liquid chromatography (HPLC) grade .... applications. These are important requirements if the reagent is to be applicable to on-line pre or post column derivatisation in a possible automation of the analytical.

The third volume Designing HighPerformance Amplifiers applies the concepts from the first two volumes. It is an advanced treatment of amplifier design/analysis emphasizing both wideband and precision amplification.

This book is concerned with the emerging field of HighPerformance Reconfigurable Computing (HPRC), which aims to harness the highperformance and relative low power of reconfigurable hardware–in the form Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)–in HighPerformance Computing (HPC) applications. It presents the latest developments in this field from applications, architecture, and tools and methodologies points of view. We hope that this work will form a reference for existing researchers in the field, and entice new researchers and developers to join the HPRC community. The book includes: Thirteen application chapters which present the most important application areas tackled by highperformance reconfigurable computers, namely: financial computing, bioinformatics and computational biology, data search and processing, stencil computation e.g. computational fluid dynamics and seismic modeling, cryptanalysis, astronomical N-body simulation, and circuit simulation. Seven architecture chapters which...

The Embedded HighPerformance Scalable Computing Systems (EHPSCS) program is a cooperative agreement between Sanders, A Lockheed Martin Company and DARPA that ran for three years, from Apr 1995 - Apr 1998...

Full Text Available This paper looks at the topic of regulation of integrated reporting for listed companies, with the aim of contributing to the debate on the usefulness of introducing a mandatory regime, both from the perspective of integrated performancesustainability of companies and from that of relevance of information for providers of financial capital. The study is based on empirical research carried out on a sample composed of companies operating in territories where the adoption of integrated reporting is voluntary (Europe and those operating in a country where adoption is mandatory (South Africa. The research shows that (a in voluntary regimes, levels of integrated performance achieved by companies are higher; (b mandatory regulation produces positive effects on integrated performance levels in the medium term; (c integrated performance indicators are value-relevant, though having different levels of relevance under the two regimes examined.

This brochure describes the key high-performance building features of the Whitman-Hanson Regional High School. The brochure was paid for by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative as part of their Green Schools Initiative. High-performance features described are daylighting and energy-efficient lighting, indoor air quality, solar and wind energy, building envelope, heating and cooling systems, water conservation, and acoustics. Energy cost savings are also discussed.

This thesis covers 3 fundamental aspects of High Temperature Reactor (HTR) performance: fuel testing under irradiation for maximized safety and sustainability, fuel architecture for improved economy and sustainability, and a novel Balance of Plant concept to enable future high-tech process heat applications with minimized R and D. The HTR concept features important inherent and passive safety characteristics: high thermal inertia and good thermal conductivity of the core; a negative Doppler coefficient; high quality of fuel elements and low power density. These features keep the core temperature within safe boundaries and minimise fission product release, even in case of severe accidents. The Very High Temperature reactor (VHTR) is based on the same safety concept as the initial HTR, but it aims at offering better economy with a higher reactor outlet temperature (and thus efficiency) and a high fuel discharge burn-up (and thus better sustainability). The inherent safety features of HTR have been demonstrated in small pebble-bed reactors in practice, but have to be replicated for reactors with industrially relevant size and power. An increase of the power density (in order to increase the helium coolant outlet temperature) leads to higher fuel temperatures and therefore higher fuel failure probability. The core of a pebble-bed reactor consists of 6 cm diameter spheres (pebbles) that form a randomly packed porous bed, which is cooled by high pressure helium. These pebbles contain thousands of 1 mm diameter fuel particles baked into a graphite matrix. These fuel particles, in turn, consist of a fuel kernel with successive coatings of pyrocarbon and silicon carbide layers. The coating layers are designed to contain the fission products that build up during operation of the reactor. The feasibility and performance of the fuel requires experimental verification in view of fuel qualification and licensing. For HTR fuel, the required test string comprises amongst others

Highperformance, security, availability, scalability, flexibility and lower costs of maintenance have essentially contributed to the growing popularity of cloud computing in all spheres of life, especially in business. In fact cloud computing offers even more than this. With usage of virtual computing clusters a runtime environment for highperformance computing can be efficiently implemented also in a cloud. There are many advantages but also some disadvantages of cloud computing, some ...

Recent empirical data for short-burst lift and power production of flying animals indicate that mass-specific lift and power output scale independently (lift) or slightly positively (power) with increasing size. These results contradict previous theory, as well as simple observation, which argues for degradation of flight performance with increasing size. Here, empirical measures of lift and power during short-burst exertion are combined with empirically based estimates of maximum muscle power output in order to predict how burst and sustainableperformance scale with body size. The resulting model is used to estimate performance of the largest extant flying birds and insects, along with the largest flying animals known from fossils. These estimates indicate that burst flight performance capacities of even the largest extinct fliers (estimated mass 250 kg) would allow takeoff from the ground; however, limitations on sustainable power output should constrain capacity for continuous flight at body sizes exceeding 0.003-1.0 kg, depending on relative wing length and flight muscle mass.

Full Text Available Well performed companies have always been linked with effective governance which is generally reflected through effective board of directors. However many issues concerning the attributes for effective board of directors remained unresolved. Nowadays diversity has been perceived as able to influence the corporate performance due to the likelihood of meeting variety of needs and demands from diverse customers and clients. The study therefore aims to provide a fundamental understanding on governance among highperforming companies in Malaysia.

Optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) is ideally suited for amplifying ultra-fast laser pulses since it provides broadband gain across a wide range of wavelengths without many of the disadvantages of regenerative amplification. A high-performance OPCPA system has been demonstrated as a prototype for the front end of the OMEGA Extended Performance (EP) Laser System. (authors)

Optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) is ideally suited for amplifying ultra-fast laser pulses since it provides broadband gain across a wide range of wavelengths without many of the disadvantages of regenerative amplification. A high-performance OPCPA system has been demonstrated as a prototype for the front end of the OMEGA Extended Performance (EP) Laser System. (authors)

National cultures have a strong influence on the performance of organizations and should be taken into account when studying the traits of highperforming managers. At the same time, many studies that focus upon the attributes of successful managers show that there are attributes that are similar

This study focuses on advanced building facades that use daylighting, sun control, ventilation systems, and dynamic systems. A quick perusal of the leading architectural magazines, or a discussion in most architectural firms today will eventually lead to mention of some of the innovative new buildings that are being constructed with all-glass facades. Most of these buildings are appearing in Europe, although interestingly U.S. A/E firms often have a leading role in their design. This ''emerging technology'' of heavily glazed fagades is often associated with buildings whose design goals include energy efficiency, sustainability, and a ''green'' image. While there are a number of new books on the subject with impressive photos and drawings, there is little critical examination of the actual performance of such buildings, and a generally poor understanding as to whether they achieve their performance goals, or even what those goals might be. Even if the building ''works'' it is often dangerous to take a design solution from one climate and location and transport it to a new one without a good causal understanding of how the systems work. In addition, there is a wide range of existing and emerging glazing and fenestration technologies in use in these buildings, many of which break new ground with respect to innovative structural use of glass. It is unclear as to how well many of these designs would work as currently formulated in California locations dominated by intense sunlight and seismic events. Finally, the costs of these systems are higher than normal facades, but claims of energy and productivity savings are used to justify some of them. Once again these claims, while plausible, are largely unsupported. There have been major advances in glazing and facade technology over the past 30 years and we expect to see continued innovation and product development. It is critical in this process to be able to

This report summarizes key technical accomplishments resulting from the three year PIER-funded R&D program, ''HighPerformance Commercial Building Systems'' (HPCBS). The program targets the commercial building sector in California, an end-use sector that accounts for about one-third of all California electricity consumption and an even larger fraction of peak demand, at a cost of over $10B/year. Commercial buildings also have a major impact on occupant health, comfort and productivity. Building design and operations practices that influence energy use are deeply engrained in a fragmented, risk-averse industry that is slow to change. Although California's aggressive standards efforts have resulted in new buildings designed to use less energy than those constructed 20 years ago, the actual savings realized are still well below technical and economic potentials. The broad goal of this program is to develop and deploy a set of energy-saving technologies, strategies, and techniques, and improve processes for designing, commissioning, and operating commercial buildings, while improving health, comfort, and performance of occupants, all in a manner consistent with sound economic investment practices. Results are to be broadly applicable to the commercial sector for different building sizes and types, e.g. offices and schools, for different classes of ownership, both public and private, and for owner-occupied as well as speculative buildings. The program aims to facilitate significant electricity use savings in the California commercial sector by 2015, while assuring that these savings are affordable and promote high quality indoor environments. The five linked technical program elements contain 14 projects with 41 distinct R&D tasks. Collectively they form a comprehensive Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D) program with the potential to capture large savings in the commercial building sector, providing significant economic benefits to

Full Text Available Affairs and Tourism (DEAT). This project is being undertaken by Green by Design (GbD), Paul Carew Consulting (PjC) and the South African Council for Industrial and Scientific Research (CSIR) and aims to review the sustainability initiatives that have been...

“Think global, act local” is a phrase much related to green governance. Since the Earth Summit in Rio de Jañeiro and its ‘Local Agenda 21’ in 1992 it is accepted that local authorities have a key role in implementing sustainable development. During the early 1990’s Local Agenda 21 diffused to many

The main objective of this research is to evaluate the feasibility of using high-volume recycled materials for concrete production in rigid pavement. The goal was to replace 50% of the solids with recycled materials and industrial by-products. The pe...

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to analyze different types of supply chain uncertainties and suggest strategies to deal with unexpected contingencies to deliver superior operational performance (OP using symmetrical and asymmetrical modeling approaches. The data were collected through a survey given to 146 supply chain managers within the fast moving consumer goods industry in Thailand. Symmetrical modeling is applied via partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM in order to assess the theoretical relationships among the latent variables, while asymmetrical modeling is applied via fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA to emphasize their combinatory causal relation. The empirical results support the theory by highlighting the mediating effect of supply chain strategy (SCS in the relation between supply chain uncertainty (SCU and firms’ OP and, hence, deliver business sustainability for the firms, demonstrating that the choice of SCS should not be an “either-or” decision. This research contributes by providing an illustration of a PLS-SEM and fsQCA based estimation for the rapidly emerging field of sustainable supply chain management. This study provides empirical support for resource dependence theory (RDT in explaining the relation between SCU and SCS, which leads to sustainable OP. From a methodological standpoint, this study also illustrates predictive validation testing of models using holdout samples and testing for causal asymmetry.

Full Text Available In today`s society, marked by profound changes in consumer attitudes towards the environment and social issues, organizations are forced to behave responsibly, to be oriented towards a sustainable marketing. However the efforts of the organization should be evaluated periodically to see the extent to which objectives are achieved and the extent to which resource consumption leads to results. From the marketing perspective, this can be achieved through marketing audit, which is a tool for evaluating and controlling a marketing organization’s performance. This paper aims, through a documentary study in the first part and an exploratory quantitative research, in the second, to highlight the role and place of the audit of marketing in companies in Romania, to assess the effectiveness of marketing activity undertaken the principles of sustainability. The last part of the paper includes research findings and a series of theoretical and managerial recommendations on the use of marketing audit as a tool for assessing the sustainability of marketing companies in the target group, with the possibility of generalizing to all companies operating on the market in Romania.

Sustainability in construction is a major concern worldwide, due to the huge volume of materials and energy consumed by this sector. Associated supplementing industries (e.g. Portland cement production) constitute a significant source of CO2 emissions and global warming. Valorisation and reuse of industrial wastes and by-products make geopolymers a solid and sustainable via to be followed as a valid alternative to Portland cement. In this work the mix design of a green fly ash-based geopolymer is evaluated as an environmentally friendly construction material. In the pursuit of sustainability, wastes from a regional kraft pulp industry are exploited for the material processing. Furthermore, a simple, reproducible, and low-cost manufacture is used. The mix design is hence optimised in order to improve the desirable mechanical performance of the material intended for structural applications in construction. Tests indicate that geopolymers may efficiently substitute the ordinary Portland cement as a mortar/concrete binder. Furthermore, valorisation and reuse of wastes in geopolymers is a suboptimal way of gaining financial surplus for the involved industrial players, while contributes for the implementation of a desirable circular economy.

Full Text Available The industry of construction products plays an important role in Europe in promoting the sustainability of the built environment in a life cycle perspective. Within the framework of the European initiatives for a sustainable competitiveness, manufacturers are interested in promoting a life cycle approach along the building chain. However both, institutions and building operators, in general still have to go a long way on designing and applying a sustainable and competitive industrial policy. This paper aims to describe the European background, the regulatory framework, identifying gaps and the actions to be undertaken to promote a market for sustainable products and sustainable buildings. In particular this paper deals with the assessment and communication of the environmental performance of construction products between the operators in the building chain, as a prerequisite for the sustainability of the built environment, and outlines the strategies to implement a proper evaluation and communication process.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key elements of a HighPerformance Work System (HPWS) and explore the possibility of implementation in an online institution of higher learning. With the projected rapid growth of the demand for online education and its importance in post-secondary education, providing high quality curriculum, excellent…

This study will examine the teacher accountability and evaluation policies and practices at three highperforming charter schools located in San Diego County, California. Charter schools are exempted from many laws, rules, and regulations that apply to traditional school systems. By examining the teacher accountability systems at high performing…

First wall and blanket (FW/blanket) design is a crucial element in the performance and acceptance of a fusion power plant. High temperature structural and breeding materials are needed for high thermal performance. A suitable combination of structural design with the selected materials is necessary for D-T fuel sufficiency. Whenever possible, low afterheat, low chemical reactivity and low activation materials are desired to achieve passive safety and minimize the amount of high-level waste. Of course the selected fusion FW/blanket design will have to match the operational scenarios of highperformance plasma. The key characteristics of eight advanced highperformance FW/blanket concepts are presented in this paper. Design configurations, performance characteristics, unique advantages and issues are summarized. All reviewed designs can satisfy most of the necessary design goals. For further development, in concert with the advancement in plasma control and scrape off layer physics, additional emphasis will be needed in the areas of first wall coating material selection, design of plasma stabilization coils, consideration of reactor startup and transient events. To validate the projected performance of the advanced FW/blanket concepts the critical element is the need for 14 MeV neutron irradiation facilities for the generation of necessary engineering design data and the prediction of FW/blanket components lifetime and availability

Full Text Available As an efficient way to deal with the global climate change and energy shortage problems, a strong, self-healing, compatible, economic and integrative smart gird is under construction in China, which is supported by large amounts of investments and advanced technologies. To promote the construction, operation and sustainable development of Strong Smart Grid (SSG, a novel hybrid framework for evaluating the performance of SSG is proposed from the perspective of sustainability. Based on a literature review, experts’ opinions and the technical characteristics of SSG, the evaluation model involves four sustainability criteria defined as economy, society, environment and technology aspects associated with 12 sub-criteria. Considering the ambiguity and vagueness of the subjective judgments on sub-criteria, fuzzy TOPSIS method is employed to evaluate the performance of SSG. In addition, different from previous research, this paper adopts the stochastic Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP method to upgrade the traditional Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS by addressing the fuzzy and stochastic factors within weights calculation. Finally, four regional smart grids in China are ranked by employing the proposed framework. The results show that the sub-criteria affiliated with environment obtain much more attention than that of economy from experts group. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis indicates the ranking list remains stable no matter how sub-criteria weights are changed, which verifies the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed model and evaluation results. This study provides a comprehensive and effective method for performance evaluation of SSG and also innovates the weights calculation for traditional TOPSIS.

The purpose of this study was to introduce a combination of the two most adopted multi- stakeholder standards for sustainability reporting as an alternate framework for assessing sustainabilityperformance in Scandinavian corporations. This novel approach leverages numeric measures on the criteria...

textabstractThis paper is based on research in Chinese cities. It addresses the issues related to urban environmental performance and sustainability in emerging Chinese cities. The result shows that: (1) To basically control the degradation of urban environment the minimum per capita GDP should be about 1000 USD in China. This amount is only one third of that in the developed world; (2) The average share in GDP necessary for environmental investments is 2.9%. Such an amount would help to avoi...

Full Text Available In the article, we focus on the question of sustainability in the renewable energy sector of Romania. The aim of the current paper is to analyze the financial performance of the companies operating in the field. Our assumption is that the success of the implementation of the energy switch from classic to renewables relies on the businesses operating in this industry. In our article, we have selected the most prominent players in the energy industry, comparing the performance of those that are producing renewable energy to the ones that are producing energy using fossil fuels. Our analysis has shown that, starting with 2013, the companies have encountered financial difficulties, which has led to a halt in investments and the questioning of the sustainability of entering the market. After analyzing the data, we have seen that the investments have been rather opportunistic, based on the commitment of the government to keep the subsidies introduced by the policy, and have not been based on the realistic long-term financial performance of the companies in this area.

Full Text Available This study investigated the effect of economic vulnerability upon competitive advantages, performance, and sustainability of micro-enterprises owned and managed by micro-entrepreneurs who participate in varied development initiatives in Peninsular Malaysia. Upon adopting the cross-sectional design, data were randomly collected from selected 300 micro-entrepreneurs from the eKasih program (national poverty data bank located in four states of Peninsular Malaysia. The quantitative data were collected by conducting structured interview sessions with the respondents held from September until November 2017. The findings revealed that the state of economic vulnerability among the respondents had a significantly negative effect on the aspects of competitive advantages, performance, and sustainability among micro-enterprises in Peninsular Malaysia. Despite of the widely acknowledged and empirically examined effects of socioeconomic antecedents upon micro-enterprise performance, the focus on the effect of a more comprehensive measure of socioeconomic condition, that is, economic vulnerability, among low-income households appears to be scant. Hence, the outcomes of this study are able to provide critical insights for development organizations pertaining to development programs and their effectiveness on economically vulnerable, particularly among low-income households in Peninsular Malaysia.

The aliphatic hydrocarbon perchloroethyelene (PCE) has been associated with neurobehavioral dysfunction including reduced attention in humans. The current study sought to assess the effects of inhaled PCE on sustained attention in rats performing a visual signal detection task (S...

Malaysia’s awareness of performance criteria in construction industry towards a sustainable built environment with the use of precast concrete sandwich panel (PCSP) system is applied in the building’s wall to study the structural behaviour. However, very limited studies are conducted on the thermal insulation of exterior and interior panels in PCSP design. In hot countries such as Malaysia, proper designs of panel are important to obtain better thermal insulation for building. This study is based on thermal performance of precast concrete sandwich panel design for sustainable built environment in Malaysia. In this research, three full specimens, which are control specimen (C), foamed concrete (FC) panels and concrete panels with added palm oil fuel ash (FC+ POFA), where FC and FC+POFA sandwiched with gypsum board (G) were produced to investigate their thermal performance. Temperature difference of exterior and interior surface of specimen was used as indicators of thermal-insulating performance of PCSP design. Heat transfer test by halogen lamp was carried out on three specimens where the exterior surface of specimens was exposed to the halogen lamp. The temperature reading of exterior and interior surface for three specimens were recorded with the help of thermocouple. Other factors also studied the workability, compressive strength and axial compressive strength of the specimens. This study has shown that FC + POFA specimen has the strength nearer to normal specimen (C + FC specimen). Meanwhile, the heat transfer results show that the FC+POFA has better thermal insulation performance compared to C and FC specimens with the highest temperature difference, 3.4°C compared to other specimens. The results from this research are useful to be implemented in construction due to its benefits such as reduction of energy consumption in air-conditioning, reduction of construction periods and eco-friendly materials.

In recent years, personalized electronics for medical applications, particularly, have attracted much attention with the rise of smartphones because the coupling of such devices and smartphones enables the continuous health-monitoring in patients' daily life. Especially, it is expected that the highperformance biomedical electronics integrated with the human body can open new opportunities in the ubiquitous healthcare. However, the mechanical and geometrical constraints inherent in all standard forms of highperformance rigid wafer-based electronics raise unique integration challenges with biotic entities. Here, we describe materials and design constructs for highperformance skin-mountable bio-integrated electronic devices, which incorporate arrays of single crystalline inorganic nanomembranes. The resulting electronic devices include flexible and stretchable electrophysiology electrodes and sensors coupled with active electronic components. These advances in bio-integrated systems create new directions in the personalized health monitoring and/or human-machine interfaces.

Today, many scientific and engineering areas require highperformance computing to perform computationally intensive experiments. For example, many advances in transport phenomena, thermodynamics, material properties, computational chemistry and physics are possible only because of the availability of such large scale computing infrastructures. Yet many challenges are still open. The cost of energy consumption, cooling, competition for resources have been some of the reasons why the scientifi...

vSphere HighPerformance Cookbook is written in a practical, helpful style with numerous recipes focusing on answering and providing solutions to common, and not-so common, performance issues and problems.The book is primarily written for technical professionals with system administration skills and some VMware experience who wish to learn about advanced optimization and the configuration features and functions for vSphere 5.1.

The European approach for nuclear energy sustainability: ESNII. Introduce in the nuclear technology development more sustainability aspects, such as, e.g. • better use of resources; • less waste; • higher system efficiency. All this while keeping very high safety standards

Full Text Available The question that arises in this work is how to select a theoretical structure scientifically justified to a research. Thus, this exploratory and descriptive study aims to present and illustrate a structured process (ProKnow-C for selecting papers on performance evaluation oriented to issues concerning sustainable development. From the proposed process, it was mentioned the following results: identification of seven key words for search, identification of four databases of abstracts and full texts aligned with the research theme, selection of 9123 articles dealing with the theme; structured filtering of the 9123 selected articles from the databases in 13 scientific articles, which resulted in the theoretical underpinning for research on performance appraisal oriented to sustainable development issues. Subsequently, it was identified the bibliometric profile of the bibliography portfolio selected, highlighting the keywords, authors, journal articles and the articles of the portfolio and the portfolio of bibliographic references for the last three. Considering the results, it was argued that the proposed process was robust, since it achieved the goal of identifying and selecting relevant publications for the study, to gather scientific content aligned to the subject that the research sought to address.

It is particularly difficult to predict the evolution of global oil production and its ability to meet the demand: the main uncertainties are related to the magnitude of the growth of emerging countries, more or less rapid decline in the production of major oil fields current events as well as natural or accidental, but especially geopolitics, which may affect, at any time, production. In a tight market today, the rapid growth of emerging economies, disruption of the oil supply chain world, even its mere mention, could cause short-term loss of excess production capacity - largely concentrated in Saudi Arabia - an increase substantial progress and, as contemplated by the International Atomic Energy imbalances between global oil supply and demand. If, after 2020, production of conventional oil begins to decline and the demand from emerging markets continues to grow, more massive imbalances may arise, leading to potential geopolitical tensions. Control would then demand the best answer. Otherwise, the resources of unconventional hydrocarbons, considerable expected to meet the demand, provided that their development is fast enough and their operating conditions are environmentally friendly. A consensus is emerging today on keeping oil prices high (above $ 100 / barrel) and volatile in the coming years, allowing some producing countries to pursue their development, but for France amplifying the negative effects on the economic growth oil bill (more than 49 billion euros in 2011) weighs more heavily in our trade deficit. In all cases, climate issues, the weight of the oil bill on our economy, securing our energy supply and technical uncertainties or geopolitical oil production call for reducing our oil consumption, accelerated motion the transition to a low carbon economy and development of our own energy resources. Contents: - Current analysis of oil reserves; - Uncertainties about the evolution of world oil production; - What is the potential long-term oil production

Gain Critical Insight into the Parallel I/O EcosystemParallel I/O is an integral component of modern highperformance computing (HPC), especially in storing and processing very large datasets to facilitate scientific discovery. Revealing the state of the art in this field, HighPerformance Parallel I/O draws on insights from leading practitioners, researchers, software architects, developers, and scientists who shed light on the parallel I/O ecosystem.The first part of the book explains how large-scale HPC facilities scope, configure, and operate systems, with an emphasis on choices of I/O har

Research on the Spherical Torus (or Spherical Tokamak) is being pursued to explore the scientific benefits of modifying the field line structure from that in more moderate aspect-ratio devices, such as the conventional tokamak. The Spherical Tours (ST) experiments are being conducted in various U.S. research facilities including the MA-class National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) at Princeton, and three medium-size ST research facilities: Pegasus at University of Wisconsin, HIT-II at University of Washington, and CDX-U at Princeton. In the context of the fusion energy development path being formulated in the U.S., an ST-based Component Test Facility (CTF) and, ultimately a Demo device, are being discussed. For these, it is essential to develop high-performance, steady-state operational scenarios. The relevant scientific issues are energy confinement, MHD stability at high beta (B), noninductive sustainment, ohmic-solenoid-free start-up, and power and particle handling. In the confinement area, the NSTX experiments have shown that the confinement can be up to 50% better than the ITER-98-pby2 H-mode scaling, consistent with the requirements for an ST-based CTF and Demo. In NSTX, CTF-relevant average toroidal beta values bT of up to 35% with the near unity central betaT have been obtained. NSTX will be exploring advanced regimes where bT up to 40% can be sustained through active stabilization of resistive wall modes. To date, the most successful technique for noninductive sustainment in NSTX is the high beta-poloidal regime, where discharges with a high noninductive fraction (∼60% bootstrap current + neutral-beam-injected current drive) were sustained over the resistive skin time. Research on radio-frequency-based heating and current drive utilizing HHFW (High Harmonic Fast Wave) and EBW (Electron Bernstein Wave) is also pursued on NSTX, Pegasus, and CDX-U. For noninductive start-up, the Coaxial Helicity Injection (CHI), developed in HIT/HIT-II, has been adopted

Nowadays an increasing attention of public and private agencies to the sustainabilityperformance of events is observed, since it is recognized as a key issue in the context of sustainable development. Assessing the sustainabilityperformance of events involves environmental, social and economic aspects; their impacts are complex and a quantitative assessment is often difficult. This paper presents a new quali-quantitative method developed to measure the sustainability of events, taking into account all its potential impacts. The 2014 World Orienteering Championship, held in Italy, was selected to test the proposed evaluation methodology. The total carbon footprint of the event was 165.34 tCO_2eq and the avoided emissions were estimated as being 46 tCO_2eq. The adopted quali-quantitative method resulted to be efficient in assessing the sustainability impacts and can be applied for the evaluation of similar events. - Highlights: • A quali-quantitative method to assess events' sustainability is presented. • All the methodological issues related to the method are explained. • The method is used to evaluate the sustainability of an international sports event. • The method resulted to be valid to assess the event's sustainability level. • The carbon footprint of the event has been calculated.

Nowadays an increasing attention of public and private agencies to the sustainabilityperformance of events is observed, since it is recognized as a key issue in the context of sustainable development. Assessing the sustainabilityperformance of events involves environmental, social and economic aspects; their impacts are complex and a quantitative assessment is often difficult. This paper presents a new quali-quantitative method developed to measure the sustainability of events, taking into account all its potential impacts. The 2014 World Orienteering Championship, held in Italy, was selected to test the proposed evaluation methodology. The total carbon footprint of the event was 165.34 tCO{sub 2}eq and the avoided emissions were estimated as being 46 tCO{sub 2}eq. The adopted quali-quantitative method resulted to be efficient in assessing the sustainability impacts and can be applied for the evaluation of similar events. - Highlights: • A quali-quantitative method to assess events' sustainability is presented. • All the methodological issues related to the method are explained. • The method is used to evaluate the sustainability of an international sports event. • The method resulted to be valid to assess the event's sustainability level. • The carbon footprint of the event has been calculated.

Constructed wetlands (CWs) have been used as an alternative to conventional technologies for wastewater treatment for more than five decades. Recently, the use of various modified CWs to improve treatment performance has also been reported in the literature. However, the available knowledge on various CW technologies considering the intensified and reliable removal of pollutants is still limited. Hence, this paper aims to provide an overview of the current development of CW strategies and techniques for enhanced wastewater treatment. Basic information on configurations and characteristics of different innovations was summarized. Then, overall treatment performance of those systems and their shortcomings were further discussed. Lastly, future perspectives were also identified for specialists to design more effective and sustainable CWs. This information is used to inspire some novel intensifying methodologies, and benefit the successful applications of potential CW technologies.

Highperformance houses require a high degree of coordination and have significant interdependencies between various systems in order to perform properly, meet customer expectations, and minimize risks for the builder. Responsibility for the key performance attributes is shared across the project team and can be well coordinated through advanced partnering strategies. For highperformance homes, traditional partnerships need to be matured to the next level and be expanded to all members of the project team including trades, suppliers, manufacturers, HERS raters, designers, architects, and building officials as appropriate. In an environment where the builder is the only source of communication between trades and consultants and where relationships are, in general, adversarial as opposed to cooperative, the chances of any one building system to fail are greater. Furthermore, it is much harder for the builder to identify and capitalize on synergistic opportunities. Partnering can help bridge the cross-functional aspects of the systems approach and achieve performance-based criteria. Critical success factors for partnering include support from top management, mutual trust, effective and open communication, effective coordination around common goals, team building, appropriate use of an outside facilitator, a partnering charter progress toward common goals, an effective problem-solving process, long-term commitment, continuous improvement, and a positive experience for all involved.

Bridge performance is a multifaceted issue involving performance of materials and protective systems, : performance of individual components of the bridge, and performance of the structural system as a whole. The : Long-Term Bridge Performance (LTBP)...

Full Text Available HighPerformance Fortran (HPF is an informal standard for extensions to Fortran 90 to assist its implementation on parallel architectures, particularly for data-parallel computation. Among other things, it includes directives for specifying data distribution across multiple memories, and concurrent execution features. This article provides a tutorial introduction to the main features of HPF.

Presents the developments in high-performance computing and simulation on modern supercomputer architectures. This book covers trends in hardware and software development in general and specifically the vector-based systems and heterogeneous architectures. It presents innovative fields like coupled multi-physics or multi-scale simulations.

Over the last few years, flexible electronic systems have gained increased attention from researchers around the world because of their potential to create new applications such as flexible displays, flexible energy harvesters, artificial skin, and health monitoring systems that cannot be integrated with conventional wafer based complementary metal oxide semiconductor processes. Most of the current efforts to create flexible highperformance devices are based on the use of organic semiconductors. However, inherent material\\'s limitations make them unsuitable for big data processing and high speed communications. The objective of my doctoral dissertation is to develop integration processes that allow the transformation of rigid highperformance electronics into flexible ones while maintaining their performance and cost. In this work, two different techniques to transform inorganic complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor electronics into flexible ones have been developed using industry compatible processes. Furthermore, these techniques were used to realize flexible discrete devices and circuits which include metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistors, the first demonstration of flexible Fin-field-effect-transistors, and metal-oxide-semiconductors-based circuits. Finally, this thesis presents a new technique to package, integrate, and interconnect flexible highperformance electronics using low cost additive manufacturing techniques such as 3D printing and inkjet printing. This thesis contains in depth studies on electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties of the fabricated devices.

Methods, apparatus, and computer program products are disclosed for debugging a highperformance computing program by gathering lists of addresses of calling instructions for a plurality of threads of execution of the program, assigning the threads to groups in dependence upon the addresses, and displaying the groups to identify defective threads.

Headmaster as leader of the school also plays a role as a technology leader. This applies to the highperformance schools (HPS) headmaster as well. The HPS excel in all aspects of education. In this study, researcher is interested in examining the role of the headmaster as a technology leader through interviews with three headmasters of high…

Achieving highperformance in complex industrial systems requires information manipulation at different system levels. The paper shows how different models of same subsystems, but using different quality of information/data, are used for fault diagnosis as well as robust control design...

Achieving highperformance in complex industrial systems requires information manipulation at different system levels. The paper shows how different models of same subsystems, but using different quality of information/data, are used for fault diagnosis as well as robust control design...

A family of Saint-Gobain structural ceramic materials and products produced by its Highperformance Refractory Division is described. Over the last fifty years or so, Saint-Gobain has been a leader in developing non oxide ceramic based novel materials, processes and products for application in Nuclear, Chemical, Automotive, Defense and Mining industries

A DC-100 kHz current transducer is developed using a new technique on zero-flux detecting principle. It was shown that the new current transducer is of highperformance, its magnetic core need not be selected very stringently, and it is easy to manufacture

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) aims at developing and deploying technologies to transform renewable biomass resources into commercially viable, high-performance biofuels, bioproducts and biopower through public and private partnerships (DOE, 2015). BETO also performs a supply chain sustainability analysis (SCSA). This report describes the SCSA of the production of renewable high octane gasoline (HOG) via indirect liquefaction (IDL) of lignocellulosic biomass. This SCSA was developed for the 2017 design case for feedstock logistics (INL, 2014) and for the 2022 target case for HOG production via IDL (Tan et al., 2015). The design includes advancements that are likely and targeted to be achieved by 2017 for the feedstock logistics and 2022 for the IDL conversion process. The 2017 design case for feedstock logistics demonstrated a delivered feedstock cost of $80 per dry U.S. short ton by the year 2017 (INL, 2014). The 2022 design case for the conversion process, as modeled in Tan et al. (2015), uses the feedstock 2017 design case blend of biomass feedstocks consisting of pulpwood, wood residue, switchgrass, and construction and demolition waste (C&D) with performance properties consistent with a sole woody feedstock type (e.g., pine or poplar). The HOG SCSA case considers the 2017 feedstock design case (the blend) as well as individual feedstock cases separately as alternative scenarios when the feedstock blend ratio varies as a result of a change in feedstock availability. These scenarios could be viewed as bounding SCSA results because of distinctive requirements for energy and chemical inputs for the production and logistics of different components of the blend feedstocks.

This report has been developed to provide a tool for the understanding and application of highperformance lighting in the home. The strategies featured in this guide are drawn from recent advances in commercial lighting for application to typical spaces found in residential buildings. This guide offers strategies to greatly reduce lighting energy use through the application of high quality fluorescent and light emitting diode (LED) technologies. It is important to note that these strategies not only save energy in the home but also serve to satisfy the homeowner’s expectations for high quality lighting.

Full Text Available Even if there is a real need of a set of key performance indicators for small and medium sized enterprises, this is not yet considered to be satisfied. Our research is focused on two main aspects, each of them individually important for the users of accounting information: the basic indicators specific for analysing operational performance and for decision making and the trend of the key performance indicators in the context of the economic crisis. The starting point of the study is a questionnaire addressed to small and medium sized enterprises activating in the tourism area, especially in the hotel industry. The respondents answered the questions in perfect anonymity by choosing one of the multiple choices for some of them and offering open answers to the others. Our analysis reveals a fair view of the dynamic of the most used key performance indicators in Romanian hotel industry, the limits of their interpretation and usage and the evolution of the financial and economic performance. The declared purpose of the research is to set the bases of a starting point in order to provide solutions for improving the relevance and the usage of these indicators in this domain, in the context of a sustainable business, taking into account the nowadays status of the economy in general and in particular the hotel industry.

Biomass-derived hydrocarbon fuel technologies are being developed and pursued for better economy, environment, and society benefits underpinning the sustainability of transportation energy. Increasing availability and affordability of natural gas (NG) in the US can play an important role in assisting renewable fuel technology development, primarily in terms of economic feasibility. When a biorefinery is co-processing NG with biomass, the current low cost of NG coupled with the higher NG carbon conversion efficiency potentially allow for cost competitiveness of the fuel while achieving a minimum GHG emission reduction of 50 percent or higher compared to petroleum fuel. This study evaluates the relative sustainability of the production of high-octane gasoline blendstock via indirect liquefaction (IDL) of biomass (and with NG co-feed) through methanol/dimethyl ether intermediates. The sustainability metrics considered in this study include minimum fuel selling price (MFSP), carbon conversion efficiency, life cycle GHG emissions, life cycle water consumption, fossil energy return on investment (EROI), GHG emission avoidance cost, and job creation. Co-processing NG can evidently improve the MFSP. Evaluation of the relative sustainability can shed light on the biomass-NG synergistic impacts and sustainability trade-offs associated with the IDL as high-octane gasoline blendstock production.

Full Text Available Web site applications are some of the most challenging high-performance applications currently being developed and deployed. The challenges emerge from the specific combination of high variability in workload characteristics and of highperformance demands regarding the service level, scalability, availability, and costs. In recent years, a large body of research has addressed the Web site application domain, and a host of innovative software and hardware solutions have been proposed and deployed. This paper is an overview of recent solutions concerning the architectures and the software infrastructures used in building Web site applications. The presentation emphasizes three of the main functions in a complex Web site: the processing of client requests, the control of service levels, and the interaction with remote network caches.

The overall objective of this Phase I SBIR effort was to advance the manufacturing technology for ASI’s Si-CNF high-performance anode by creating a framework for large volume production and utilization of low-cost Si-coated carbon nanofibers (Si-CNF) for the battery industry. This project explores the use of nano-structured silicon which is deposited on a nano-scale carbon filament to achieve the benefits of high cycle life and high charge capacity without the consequent fading of, or failure in the capacity resulting from stress-induced fracturing of the Si particles and de-coupling from the electrode. ASI’s patented coating process distinguishes itself from others, in that it is highly reproducible, readily scalable and results in a Si-CNF composite structure containing 25-30% silicon, with a compositionally graded interface at the Si-CNF interface that significantly improve cycling stability and enhances adhesion of silicon to the carbon fiber support. In Phase I, the team demonstrated the production of the Si-CNF anode material can successfully be transitioned from a static bench-scale reactor into a fluidized bed reactor. In addition, ASI made significant progress in the development of low cost, quick testing methods which can be performed on silicon coated CNFs as a means of quality control. To date, weight change, density, and cycling performance were the key metrics used to validate the highperformance anode material. Under this effort, ASI made strides to establish a quality control protocol for the large volume production of Si-CNFs and has identified several key technical thrusts for future work. Using the results of this Phase I effort as a foundation, ASI has defined a path forward to commercialize and deliver high volume and low-cost production of SI-CNF material for anodes in Li-ion batteries.

Full Text Available When Java was first introduced, there was a perception that its many benefits came at a significant performance cost. In the particularly performance-sensitive field of numerical computing, initial measurements indicated a hundred-fold performance disadvantage between Java and more established languages such as Fortran and C. Although much progress has been made, and Java now can be competitive with C/C++ in many important situations, significant performance challenges remain. Existing Java virtual machines are not yet capable of performing the advanced loop transformations and automatic parallelization that are now common in state-of-the-art Fortran compilers. Java also has difficulties in implementing complex arithmetic efficiently. These performance deficiencies can be attacked with a combination of class libraries (packages, in Java that implement truly multidimensional arrays and complex numbers, and new compiler techniques that exploit the properties of these class libraries to enable other, more conventional, optimizations. Two compiler techniques, versioning and semantic expansion, can be leveraged to allow fully automatic optimization and parallelization of Java code. Our measurements with the NINJA prototype Java environment show that Java can be competitive in performance with highly optimized and tuned Fortran code.

The increased pressure on companies to address sustainability issues has resulted in the development of several voluntary corporate sustainability integration approaches. The array of existing approaches is large and overwhelming, resulting in companies not understanding what corporate

The irradiation test for HANA claddings conducted and a series of evaluation for next-HANA claddings as well as their in-pile and out-of pile performances tests were also carried out at Halden research reactor. The 6th irradiation test have been completed successfully in Halden research reactor. As a result, HANA claddings showed highperformance, such as corrosion resistance increased by 40% compared to Zircaloy-4. The highperformance of HANA claddings in Halden test has enabled lead test rod program as the first step of the commercialization of HANA claddings. DB has been established for thermal and LOCA-related properties. It was confirmed from the thermal shock test that the integrity of HANA claddings was maintained in more expanded region than the criteria regulated by NRC. The manufacturing process of strips was established in order to apply HANA alloys, which were originally developed for the claddings, to the spacer grids. 250 kinds of model alloys for the next-generation claddings were designed and manufactured over 4 times and used to select the preliminary candidate alloys for the next-generation claddings. The selected candidate alloys showed 50% better corrosion resistance and 20% improved high temperature oxidation resistance compared to the foreign advanced claddings. We established the manufacturing condition controlling the performance of the dual-cooled claddings by changing the reduction rate in the cold working steps

The primary goal of this effort was to provide a low-cost method of obtaining high-performance 3-D graphics using an industry standard library (OpenGL) on PC class computers. Previously, users interested in doing substantial visualization or graphical manipulation were constrained to using specialized, custom hardware most often found in computers from Silicon Graphics (SGI). We provided an alternative to expensive SGI hardware by taking advantage of third-party, 3-D graphics accelerators that have now become available at very affordable prices. To make use of this hardware our goal was to provide a free, redistributable, and fully-compatible OpenGL work-alike library so that existing bodies of code could simply be recompiled. for PC class machines running a free version of Unix. This should allow substantial cost savings while greatly expanding the population of people with access to a serious graphics development and viewing environment. This should offer a means for NASA to provide a spectrum of graphics performance to its scientists, supplying high-end specialized SGI hardware for high-performance visualization while fulfilling the requirements of medium and lower performance applications with generic, off-the-shelf components and still maintaining compatibility between the two.

High Energy Physics code has been known for making poor use of highperformance computing architectures. Efforts in optimising HEP code on vector and RISC architectures have yield limited results and recent studies have shown that, on modern architectures, it achieves a performance between 10% and 50% of the peak one. Although several successful attempts have been made to port selected codes on GPUs, no major HEP code suite has a 'HighPerformance' implementation. With LHC undergoing a major upgrade and a number of challenging experiments on the drawing board, HEP cannot any longer neglect the less-than-optimal performance of its code and it has to try making the best usage of the hardware. This activity is one of the foci of the SFT group at CERN, which hosts, among others, the Root and Geant4 project. The activity of the experiments is shared and coordinated via a Concurrency Forum, where the experience in optimising HEP code is presented and discussed. Another activity is the Geant-V project, centred on th...

The main purpose of this report is to provide Glencore with applicable recommendations so that it can improve its sustainable reputation. The second purpose of the work is to present all risks incurred by Glencore’s non-application of sustainable recommendations. Recommendations and risks have been developed based on literature, interviews and companies’ good practices. Sustainability reports of mining companies publicly quoted have been intensively used to grasp the different sustainability ...

Full Text Available The current research paper aims at making a comprehensive analysis of the current green marketing initiatives adopted by the top performing Romanian companies, in order to understand the determinant factors that influence their green approach and to evaluate the impact of the sustainability strategies implemented on their financial performance. The research of business sustainability strategies in 31 top performing companies in Romania is conducted by analyzing their green marketing initiatives, the ability to communicate online current and past Corporate Sustainability (CS actions (substantive action and their future commitments towards green marketing (symbolic action. The authors also analyzed the impact of companies’ dimensions on their green performance and commitment, substantiating that the size of a company is a significant influential factor. The analysis of the impact of substantive and symbolic action on the financial performance of the companies shows that there is not a significant correlation between these indicators.

Full Text Available This paper describes the fracture toughness of the innovative structural material - Ultra HighPerformance Concrete (UHPC, evaluated by flexural performance. For determination the material behaviour by static loading are used adapted standard test methods for flexural performance of fiber-reinforced concrete (ASTM C 1609 and ASTM C 1018. Fracture toughness is estimated by various deformation parameters derived from the load-deflection curve, obtained by testing simple supported beam under third-point loading, using servo-controlled testing system. This method is used to be estimated the contribution of the embedded fiber-reinforcement into improvement of the fractural behaviour of UHPC by changing the crack-resistant capacity, fracture toughness and energy absorption capacity with various mechanisms. The position of the first crack has been formulated based on P-δ (load- deflection response and P-ε (load - longitudinal deformation in the tensile zone response, which are used for calculation of the two toughness indices I5 and I10. The combination of steel fibres with different dimensions leads to a composite, having at the same time increased crack resistance, first crack formation, ductility and post-peak residual strength.

Self-Propagating High-Temperature Synthesis (SHS), also called combustion synthesis is an exothermic and self-sustained reaction between the constituents, which has assumed significance for the production of ceramics and ceramic-metallic materials (cermets), because it is a very rapid processing

Full Text Available The current approach to business management focuses on increasing the performance of business processes. To achieve the required processes performance means to ensure the required quality and capability of processes. The partial aim of this paper is to confirm the positive effects of the Six Sigma methodology (SSM on the corporate performance in the Slovak Republic and an investigation of the dependency of SSM implementation on the certified quality management system (QMS as a set-forward condition via a questionnaire survey carried out in Slovak industrial enterprises. The survey results confirmed the above-mentioned assumptions. The SSM using DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control was applied in real conditions of two manufacturing enterprises with a different level of quality management system. The results of the research study proved a possibility to implement SSM and to use the same methods in enterprises aside from a level of QMS. However, more remarkable results were achieved by the enterprise which introduced QMS. The first application of SSM in enterprises within specific conditions of furniture production processes can be considered to be a contribution of the research study, as well. The result of the work is the model including the methodology and the appropriate combination of methods and tools for assuring the sustainableperformance of the business processes.

Full Text Available Most studies in the project management field emphasized the effects of leaders or managers, but these effects have rarely been examined at the project level. To cover this research gap, this study applies organizational ambidexterity theory to examine the effects among ambidextrous leadership, ambidextrous culture and sustainability-based project performance. Using a valid sample of 217 project leaders and members from Chinese construction projects, the method of multiple linear regression was adopted to assess the direct relationship among ambidextrous leadership, ambidextrous culture and project performance. Moreover, the bootstrapping technique through structural equation modeling, has been used to analyze the mediating effect of ambidextrous culture. Additionally, the sample data was divided into different groups according to the median value of the variables to conduct the ANOVA and to assess the within-group differences. The results indicated a positive and direct relationship that ambidextrous leadership has on project performance and ambidextrous culture. In addition, there was also a mediating impact of ambidextrous leadership on project performance via ambidextrous culture. Thus, ambidextrous leadership combined with transformational leadership as well as transactional leadership likely has a stronger positive impact on project performance through fostering the adaptive culture and consistent culture. Our findings contribute to an in-depth understanding of the role of the leader and culture for project outcomes. The project-based organization in construction projects could train project leaders’ ambidextrous leadership behavior to facilitate the formation of an ambidextrous culture and to increase project performance. Moreover, this study enriches the existing literature on leadership and project management by highlighting the important path of ambidextrous leadership and ambidextrous culture on the performance at the project level

This paper presents results of singlet oxygen generation experiments in a high-pressure, non-self-sustained crossed discharge. The discharge consists of a high-voltage, short pulse duration, high repetition rate pulsed discharge, which produces ionization in the flow, and a low-voltage dc discharge which sustains current in a decaying plasma between the pulses. The sustainer voltage can be independently varied to maximize the energy input into electron impact excitation of singlet delta oxygen (SDO). The results demonstrate operation of a stable and diffuse crossed discharge in O 2 -He mixtures at static pressures of at least up to P 0 = 380 Torr and sustainer discharge powers of at least up to 1200 W, achieved at P 0 = 120 Torr. The reduced electric field in the positive column of the sustainer discharge varies from E/N = 0.3 x 10 -16 to 0.65 X 10 -16 V cm 2 , which is significantly lower than E/N in self-sustained discharges and close to the theoretically predicted optimum value for O 2 (a 1 Δ) excitation. Measurements of visible emission spectra O 2 (b 1 Σ → X 3 Σ) in the discharge afterglow show the O 2 (b 1 Σ) concentration to increase with the sustainer discharge power and to decrease as the O 2 fraction in the flow is increased. Rotational temperatures inferred from these spectra in 10% O 2 -90% He flows at P 0 = 120 Torr and mass flow rates of m-dot = 2.2 are 365-465 K. SDO yield at these conditions, 1.7% to 4.4%, was inferred from the integrated intensity of the (0, 0) band of the O 2 (a 1 Δ → X 3 Σ) infrared emission spectra calibrated using a blackbody source. The yield remains nearly constant in the discharge afterglow, up to at least 15 cm distance from the discharge. Kinetic modelling calculations using a quasi-one-dimensional nonequilibrium pulser-sustainer discharge model coupled with the Boltzmann equation for plasma electrons predict gas temperature rise in the discharge in satisfactory agreement with the experimental measurements

Full Text Available Nowadays, a lot of waste glass produced through different sides of life. Applying sustainability has been widely used in different construction materials and flexible pavement was contained different recycled materials through different studies. Recycled glass, where it is nonmetallic and inorganic, it can neither be incinerated nor decomposed, so it may be difficult to reclaim, has been used as filler, fine and coarse aggregates in the asphalt base course. In this study, various standard asphalt tests, such as stability, flow, density and air voids, have been conducted on reference mix asphalt and mix asphalt with different percentages of recycled glass when it has been used as filler, fine and coarse aggregates in the base course. Generally, the results show good indication, especially when using 10% of the recycled glass instead of coarse aggregate with 40-50 asphalt grades. This percentage improves most characteristics such as strength retained index which indicates better performance than reference mix.

How can a firm develop new ideas and turn them into profitable innovations on a sustained basis? We address this fundamental issue in a novel way by developing an integrative framework of absorptive capacity (AC) and inbound open innovation that is rooted in the attention-based view of the firm. We...... specifically address why a balance between open and closed innovation is important from the perspective of absorptive capacity, and show how it may be brought about. Pursuing either open or closed inbound innovation alone may result in an imbalance between potential AC and realized AC as well as inward......-looking AC and outward-looking AC, which will hinder innovative performance.We argue that practicing open and closed inbound innovation repeatedly and alternately by switching organizational attentions, and thus developing the associated AC, can facilitate balancing absorptive capacity and lead to innovative...

The invention describes a new class of highly stable mixed conducting materials based on acceptor doped cerium oxide (CeO2-8 ) in which the limiting electronic conductivity is significantly enhanced by co-doping with a second element or co- dopant, such as Nb, W and Zn, so that cerium and the co......-dopant have an ionic size ratio between 0.5 and 1. These materials can thereby improve the performance and extend the range of operating conditions of oxygen permeation membranes (OPM) for different high temperature membrane reactor applications. The invention also relates to the manufacturing of supported...

Full Text Available This paper introduces Playa, a high-level user interface layer for composing algorithms for complex multiphysics problems out of objects from other Trilinos packages. Among other features, Playa provides very high-performance overloaded operators implemented through an expression template mechanism. In this paper, we give an overview of the central Playa objects from a user's perspective, show application to a sequence of increasingly complex solver algorithms, provide timing results for Playa's overloaded operators and other functions, and briefly survey some of the implementation issues involved.

This paper describes how various technologies are used to achieve the desired performance in a high current magnet power converter system. It is hoped that the discussions of the design approaches taken will be applicable to other power supply systems where stringent requirements in stability, accuracy and reliability must be met

The aim of this study is to assess the ability of EEG-based indices in providing relevant information about cognitive engagement level during the execution of a clinical sustained attention (SA) test in healthy volunteers and DAI (diffused axonal injury)-affected patients. We computed three continuous power-based engagement indices (P β /P α , 1/P α , and P β / (P α + P θ )) from EEG recordings in a control group (n = 7) and seven DAI-affected patients executing a 10-min Conners' "not-X" continuous performance test (CPT). A correlation analysis was performed in order to investigate the existence of relations between the EEG metrics and behavioral parameters in both the populations. P β /P α and 1/P α indices were found to be correlated with reaction times in both groups while P β / (P α + P θ ) and P β /P α also correlated with the errors rate for DAI patients. In line with previous studies, time course fluctuations revealed a first strong decrease of attention after 2 min from the beginning of the test and a final fading at the end. Our results provide evidence that EEG-derived indices extraction and evaluation during SA tasks are helpful in the assessment of attention level in healthy subjects and DAI patients, offering motivations for including EEG monitoring in cognitive rehabilitation practice. Graphical abstract Three EEG-derived indices were computed from four electrodes montages in a population of seven healthy volunteers and a group of seven DAI-affected patients. Results show a significant correlation between the time course of the indices and behavioral parameters, thus demonstrating their usefulness in monitoring mental engagement level during a sustained attention task.

The robotic observatory telescope must point precisely on the target object, and then track autonomously to a fraction of the FWHM of the system PSF for durations of ten to twenty minutes or more. It must retain this precision while continuing to function at rates approaching thousands of observations per night for all its years of useful life. These stringent requirements raise new challenges unique to robotic telescope systems design. Critical design considerations are driven by the applicability of the above requirements to all systems of the robotic observatory, including telescope and instrument systems, telescope-dome enclosure systems, combined electrical and electronics systems, environmental (e.g. seeing) control systems and integrated computer control software systems. Traditional telescope design considerations include the effects of differential thermal strain, elastic flexure, plastic flexure and slack or backlash with respect to focal stability, optical alignment and angular pointing and tracking precision. Robotic observatory design must holistically encapsulate these traditional considerations within the overall objective of maximized long-term sustainable precision performance. This overall objective is accomplished through combining appropriate mechanical and dynamical system characteristics with a full-time real-time telescope mount model feedback computer control system. Important design considerations include: identifying and reducing quasi-zero-backlash; increasing size to increase precision; directly encoding axis shaft rotation; pointing and tracking operation via real-time feedback between precision mount model and axis mounted encoders; use of monolithic construction whenever appropriate for sustainable mechanical integrity; accelerating dome motion to eliminate repetitive shock; ducting internal telescope air to outside dome; and the principal design criteria: maximizing elastic repeatability while minimizing slack, plastic deformation

on top of a support membrane. Control membranes, either without aquaporins or with the inactive AqpZ R189A mutant aquaporin served as controls. The separation performance of the membranes was evaluated by cross-flow forward osmosis (FO) and reverse osmosis (RO) tests. In RO the ABM achieved a water......Aquaporins are water channel proteins with high water permeability and solute rejection, which makes them promising for preparing high-performance biomimetic membranes. Despite the growing interest in aquaporin-based biomimetic membranes (ABMs), it is challenging to produce robust and defect...... permeability of ~ 4 L/(m2 h bar) with a NaCl rejection > 97% at an applied hydraulic pressure of 5 bar. The water permeability was ~40% higher compared to a commercial brackish water RO membrane (BW30) and an order of magnitude higher compared to a seawater RO membrane (SW30HR). In FO, the ABMs had > 90...

The absence of unbiased and up to date comparative evaluations of high-performance computing software complicates a user`s search for the appropriate software package. The National HPCC Software Exchange (NHSE) is attacking this problem using an approach that includes independent evaluations of software, incorporation of author and user feedback into the evaluations, and Web access to the evaluations. We are applying this approach to the Parallel Tools Library (PTLIB), a new software repository for parallel systems software and tools, and HPC-Netlib, a highperformance branch of the Netlib mathematical software repository. Updating the evaluations with feed-back and making it available via the Web helps ensure accuracy and timeliness, and using independent reviewers produces unbiased comparative evaluations difficult to find elsewhere.

This book mainly focuses on cloud security and highperformance computing for cloud auditing. The book discusses emerging challenges and techniques developed for highperformance semantic cloud auditing, and presents the state of the art in cloud auditing, computing and security techniques with focus on technical aspects and feasibility of auditing issues in federated cloud computing environments. In summer 2011, the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) CyberBAT Cloud Security and Auditing Team initiated the exploration of the cloud security challenges and future cloud auditing research directions that are covered in this book. This work was supported by the United States government funds from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the AFOSR Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP), the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Visiting Faculty Research Program (VFRP), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Health (NIH). All chapters were partially suppor...

Knowledge of the effectiveness and efficiency of computers is important when working with highperformance systems. The monitoring of such systems is advantageous in order to foresee possible misfortunes or system failures. Ganglia is a software system designed for highperformance computing systems to retrieve specific monitoring information. An alternative storage facility for Ganglia's collected data is needed since its default storage system, the round-robin database (RRD), struggles with data integrity. The creation of a script-driven MySQL database solves this dilemma. This paper describes the process took in the creation and implementation of the MySQL database for use by Ganglia. Comparisons between data storage by both databases are made using gnuplot and Ganglia's real-time graphical user interface

This paper reports that Fermilab's Advanced Computer Program (ACP) has been developing cost effective, yet practical, parallel computers for high energy physics since 1984. The ACP's latest developments are proceeding in two directions. A Second Generation ACP Multiprocessor System for experiments will include $3500 RISC processors each with performance over 15 VAX MIPS. To support such highperformance, the new system allows parallel I/O, parallel interprocess communication, and parallel host processes. The ACP Multi-Array Processor, has been developed for theoretical physics. Each $4000 node is a FORTRAN or C programmable pipelined 20 Mflops (peak), 10 MByte single board computer. These are plugged into a 16 port crossbar switch crate which handles both inter and intra crate communication. The crates are connected in a hypercube. Site oriented applications like lattice gauge theory are supported by system software called CANOPY, which makes the hardware virtually transparent to users. A 256 node, 5 GFlop, system is under construction

Full Text Available The decline of socio-ecological resilience has emerged as an unprecedented truth with high risks to local and global economies, thereby increasing the vulnerability of businesses and markets while potentially threatening the wellbeing of civil society as a whole. From a business perspective, corporate strategies towards sustainability are crucial to strengthen the social and economic foundations that foster sustainable development. In order to assist enterprises pursuing leading market positions, this work proposes a set of strategic actions towards sustainability and an evaluation scheme to assess the effectiveness of their implementation process. This proposed global strategy encompasses five key sustainability indices—commitment, investment, difficulty, proactivity and vulnerability—focusing the investigation on a sample of enterprises representing the highest consumers of electricity in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Addressing the energy consumption, this study also discusses the concerning level of GHG emissions that are associated with the generation of electricity. Although 85% of the enterprises participating in this survey recognized the relevance of the actions proposed, the current degree of proactivity and vulnerability associated with these enterprises indicate that very few of them have effectively implemented and invested in corporate sustainability programs, certainly a symptom of their institutional vulnerability.

What does it mean to be a high-performance company? The process of measuring relative performance across industries and eras, declaring top performers, and finding the common drivers of their success is such a difficult one that it might seem a fool's errand to attempt. In fact, no one did for the first thousand or so years of business history. The question didn't even occur to many scholars until Tom Peters and Bob Waterman released In Search of Excellence in 1982. Twenty-three years later, we've witnessed several more attempts--and, just maybe, we're getting closer to answers. In this reported piece, HBR senior editor Julia Kirby explores why it's so difficult to study highperformance and how various research efforts--including those from John Kotter and Jim Heskett; Jim Collins and Jerry Porras; Bill Joyce, Nitin Nohria, and Bruce Roberson; and several others outlined in a summary chart-have attacked the problem. The challenge starts with deciding which companies to study closely. Are the stars the ones with the highest market caps, the ones with the greatest sales growth, or simply the ones that remain standing at the end of the game? (And when's the end of the game?) Each major study differs in how it defines success, which companies it therefore declares to be worthy of emulation, and the patterns of activity and attitude it finds in common among them. Yet, Kirby concludes, as each study's method incrementally solves problems others have faced, we are progressing toward a consensus theory of highperformance.

and phase-field crystal equation will be presented, which corroborate the theoretical findings, and illustrate the robustness of the method. Results related to more challenging examples, namely the Navier-Stokes Cahn-Hilliard and a diusion-reaction Cahn-Hilliard system, will also be presented. The implementation was done in PetIGA and PetIGA-MF, high-performance Isogeometric Analysis frameworks [1, 3], designed to handle non-linear, time-dependent problems.

computing. Of particular interest is the ability of a distrib- uted jamming network (DJN) to jam signals in all or part of a sensor or communications net...and reasoning, assistive technologies. FRIEDRICH (FRITZ) PRINZ Finmeccanica Professor of Engineering, Robert Bosch Chair, Department of Engineering...HighPerformance Computing Research Center www.ahpcrc.org BARBARA BRYAN AHPCRC Research and Outreach Manager, HPTi (650) 604-3732 bbryan@hpti.com Ms

One of the goals of the nuclear industry is to achieve economic performance such that nuclear power plants are competitive in a de-regulated market. The manner in which nuclear fuel is designed and operated lies at the heart of economic viability. In this sense reliability, operating flexibility and low costs are the three major requirements of the NPP today. The translation of these three requirements to the design is part of our work. The challenge today is to produce a fuel design which will operate with long operating cycles, high discharge burnup, power up-rating and while still maintaining all design and safety margins. European Fuel Group (EFG) understands that to achieve the required performancehigh duty/energy fuel designs are needed. The concerns for high duty design includes, among other items, core design methods, advanced Safety Analysis methodologies, performance models, advanced material and operational strategies. The operational aspects require the trade-off and evaluation of various parameters including coolant chemistry control, material corrosion, boiling duty, boron level impacts, etc. In this environment MAEF is the design that EFG is now offering based on ZIRLO alloy and a robust skeleton. This new design is able to achieve 70 GWd/tU and Lead Test Programs are being executed to demonstrate this capability. A number of performance issues which have been a concern with current designs have been resolved such as cladding corrosion and incomplete RCCA insertion (IRI). As the core duty becomes more aggressive other new issues need to be addressed such as Axial Offset Anomaly. These new issues are being addressed by combination of the new design in concert with advanced methodologies to meet the demanding needs of NPP. The ability and strategy to meet high duty core requirements, flexibility of operation and maintain acceptable balance of all technical issues is the discussion in this paper. (authors)

Mathematics and Statistics (AMS) at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) to conduct research and research-related education in areas of...Computing in Biomathematics Applications Report Title The goal of this award was to enhance the capabilities of the Department of Applied Mathematics and...DURIP: HighPerformance Computing in Biomathematics Applications The goal of this award was to enhance the capabilities of the Department of Applied

The HighPerformance Computing Operations Review (HPCOR) meeting—requested by the ASC and ASCR program headquarters at DOE—was held November 5 and 6, 2013, at the Marriott Hotel in San Francisco, CA. The purpose of the review was to discuss the processes and practices for HPC integration and its related software and facilities. Experiences and lessons learned from the most recent systems deployed were covered in order to benefit the deployment of new systems.

Both industry-wide research and corporate benchmarking studies confirm the significant savings in cost and time that result from early planning of a project. Amoco's Team Planning Workshop combines long-term strategic project planning and short-term tactical planning with team building to provide the basis for highperforming project teams, better project planning, and effective implementation of the Amoco Common Process for managing projects

The building envelope has high potential to reduce the energy consumption of buildings according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) because it is involved along all the building process: design, construction, use, and end-of-life. The present study compares the thermal behavior of seven different building prototypes tested under Mediterranean climate: two of them were built with sustainable earth-based construction systems and the other five, with conventional brick construction systems. The tested earth-based construction systems consist of rammed earth walls and wooden green roofs, which have been adapted to contemporary requirements by reducing their thickness. In order to balance the thermal response, wooden insulation panels were placed in one of the earth prototypes. All building prototypes have the same inner dimensions and orientation, and they are fully monitored to register inner temperature and humidity, surface walls temperatures and temperatures inside walls. Furthermore, all building prototypes are equipped with a heat pump and an electricity meter to measure the electrical energy consumed to maintain a certain level of comfort. The experimentation was performed along a whole year by carrying out several experiments in free floating and controlled temperature conditions. This study aims at demonstrating that sustainable construction systems can behave similarly or even better than conventional ones under summer and winter conditions. Results show that thermal behavior is strongly penalized when rammed earth wall thickness is reduced. However, the addition of 6 cm of wooden insulation panels in the outer surface of the building prototype successfully improves the thermal response.

Full Text Available Small-scale gold mining is an important component of the Ghanaian economy but it has also caused enormous damage to local ecosystems. In this paper, an emergy analysis was conducted in Ghana to assess the environmental performance and the relative sustainability of two artisanal and small-scale gold production systems: alluvial “dig and wash” and underground “ghetto” mines. Results show that both production systems have high environmental impacts, as indicated by an environmental loading ratio (ELR of 4.31 and environmental sustainability index (ESI of 0.33 for the alluvial system and 2.53 and 0.52 for the underground system, respectively. Concerning the international trade balance, the emergy exchange ratios of the two systems are both lower than one, at, 0.23 and 0.33 for the alluvial and underground systems, respectively, indicating a significant amount of resource loss to foreign regions. This study could assist in the regulation of the small-scale mining sector bearing in mind the unsustainable nature of their activities. In addition, supporting miners to consider land rehabilitation ethics is urgently needed.

The pace of extraordinary advances in molecular biology has accelerated in the past decade due in large part to discoveries coming from genome projects on human and model organisms. The advances in the genome project so far, happening well ahead of schedule and under budget, have exceeded any dreams by its protagonists, let alone formal expectations. Biologists expect the next phase of the genome project to be even more startling in terms of dramatic breakthroughs in our understanding of human biology, the biology of health and of disease. Only today can biologists begin to envision the necessary experimental, computational and theoretical steps necessary to exploit genome sequence information for its medical impact, its contribution to biotechnology and economic competitiveness, and its ultimate contribution to environmental quality. Highperformance computing has become one of the critical enabling technologies, which will help to translate this vision of future advances in biology into reality. Biologists are increasingly becoming aware of the potential of highperformance computing. The goal of this tutorial is to introduce the exciting new developments in computational biology and genomics to the highperformance computing community.

Full Text Available The study reveals that causation, rather than effectuation, decision-making strategy is a more significant predictor of sustainableperformance of SMEs. However, social intelligence was not found to be a significant moderator of entrepreneurial decision-making-sustainableperformance relationship. The study uses data from a survey among 91 technology-based SMEs (TBS in Malaysia and employs structural equation modelling techniques for data analysis. A new instrument to measure all three variables of entrepreneurial decision-making strategy, social intelligence, and venture performance is proposed based on adoption and adaptation of existing validated scales available in literature.

Full Text Available The impressive growth of the Vietnam textile and apparel industry has led to some concerns due to its insufficient value chain and fierce competition within the industry. Thus, performance evaluation is significant issue to estimate the values of companies over time. Firstly, the grey prediction is used to forecast future data for 20 largest enterprises in six years (2016–2021 based on actual indicators. Then, the paper uses Malmquist productivity index and its decomposition into efficiency and technical change to measure the past productivity growth. Finally, window analysis is applied to significantly detect the trends of performance in 12 years (2010–2021 from large number of inputs and outputs. The results are found that how technology changes is the determinant for productivity growth and undeveloped technology causes a huge barrier to industry. In addition, the results are illustrated that textile companies are predicted to be more stable due to the importance of supplying materials for the entire industry. This paper aims to prove in-depth analysis can be conducted through combined models and also provide some recommendations for enhancing the sustainabilityperformance of the industry.

Full Text Available Generation Z (Gen Z, the future of America’s workforce, is forecasted to represent more than 30 million persons by 2020. Volunteer rates have been declining since 2002. Most compelling is that overall lowest volunteer rates were found to be within the Gen Z segment, with expectations of continued decline. Thus, this study explored motivations associated with sustainable volunteering by Gen Z based upon past research that documented intent to volunteer is strongly associated with age. In doing so, the Volunteer Functions Inventory was adopted to identify Gen Z motivations for volunteering. This study then employed the theory of planned behavior to test the relationships between Gen Z volunteering motivations, their attitudes and job performance using data obtained from 306 Gen Z volunteer special event participants. Among five motives identified to be important to Gen Z, only four motives (“value”, “career”, “learning” and “self-esteem” were found to significantly influence their attitudes. The ‘social’ motive was found to have no significant effect on their attitudes towards volunteering. This research framework was supported by validating the significant relationships between volunteer motivations, attitudes and job performance specific to the Gen Z volunteer segment. “Job training appropriateness” was found to be an important moderator for improving the relationships between Gen Z volunteer attitudes and job performance.

The operation of JT-60U reversed shear discharges has been extended to a high plasma current, low-q regime keeping a large radius of the internal transport barrier (ITB) and the record value of equivalent fusion multiplication factor in JT-60U, Q DT eq =1.25, has been achieved at 2.6 MA. Operational schemes to reach the low-q regime with good reproducibility have been developed. The reduction of Z eff was obtained in the newly installed W-shaped pumped divertor. The beta limit in the low-q min regime, which limited the performance of L-mode edge discharges, has been improved in H-mode edge discharges with a broader pressure profile, which was obtained by power flow control with ITB degradation. Sustainment of ITB and improved confinement for 5.5 seconds has been demonstrated in an ELMy H reversed shear discharge. (author)

The major advantage of HighPerformance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) is its ability to provide rapid and highperformance separations. It is evident from Van Deemter curve for particle size versus resolution that packing materials with particle sizes less than 2 μm provide better resolution for high speed separations and resolving complex mixtures compared to 5 μm based supports. In the recent past, chromatographic support material using monolith has been studied extensively at our laboratory. Monolith column consists of single piece of porous, rigid material containing mesopores and micropores, which provide fast analyte mass transfer. Monolith support provides significantly higher separation efficiency than particle-packed columns. A clear advantage of monolith is that it could be operated at higher flow rates but with lower back pressure. Higher operating flow rate results in higher column permeability, which drastically reduces analysis time and provides high separation efficiency. The above developed fast separation methods were applied to assay the lanthanides and actinides from the dissolver solutions of nuclear reactor fuels

Starting from the recent quest to investigate the human side of organizational sustainability, this study applies a variety of regression analyses to investigate the effects of Lean Operations, High Involvement Work Practices, and management behaviors on occupational safety. It tests and finds support for the hypotheses that Lean Production systems, High Involvement Work Practices, and two specific management behaviors—workers’ capability development (coaching and teaching of workers) and emp...

In this project, OLEDWorks developed and demonstrated the technology required to produce OLED lighting panels with high energy efficiency and excellent light quality. OLED panels developed in this program produce high quality warm white light with CRI greater than 85 and efficacy up to 80 lumens per watt (LPW). An OLED luminaire employing 24 of the highperformance panels produces practical levels of illumination for general lighting, with a flux of over 2200 lumens at 60 LPW. This is a significant advance in the state of the art for OLED solid-state lighting (SSL), which is expected to be a complementary light source to the more advanced LED SSL technology that is rapidly replacing all other traditional forms of lighting.

High Energy Physics code has been known for making poor use of highperformance computing architectures. Efforts in optimising HEP code on vector and RISC architectures have yield limited results and recent studies have shown that, on modern architectures, it achieves a performance between 10% and 50% of the peak one. Although several successful attempts have been made to port selected codes on GPUs, no major HEP code suite has a 'HighPerformance' implementation. With LHC undergoing a major upgrade and a number of challenging experiments on the drawing board, HEP cannot any longer neglect the less-than-optimal performance of its code and it has to try making the best usage of the hardware. This activity is one of the foci of the SFT group at CERN, which hosts, among others, the Root and Geant4 project. The activity of the experiments is shared and coordinated via a Concurrency Forum, where the experience in optimising HEP code is presented and discussed. Another activity is the Geant-V project, centred on the development of a highperformance prototype for particle transport. Achieving a good concurrency level on the emerging parallel architectures without a complete redesign of the framework can only be done by parallelizing at event level, or with a much larger effort at track level. Apart the shareable data structures, this typically implies a multiplication factor in terms of memory consumption compared to the single threaded version, together with sub-optimal handling of event processing tails. Besides this, the low level instruction pipelining of modern processors cannot be used efficiently to speedup the program. We have implemented a framework that allows scheduling vectors of particles to an arbitrary number of computing resources in a fine grain parallel approach. The talk will review the current optimisation activities within the SFT group with a particular emphasis on the development perspectives towards a simulation framework able to profit

Full Text Available Biogas is considered a promising option for complementing the fluctuating energy supply from other renewable sources. Maize is currently the dominant biogas crop, but its environmental performance is questionable. Through its replacement with high-yielding and nutrient-efficient perennial C4 grasses, the environmental impact of biogas could be considerably improved. The objective of this paper is to assess and compare the environmental performance of the biogas production and utilization of perennial miscanthus and switchgrass and annual maize. An LCA was performed using data from field trials, assessing the impact in the five categories: climate change (CC, fossil fuel depletion (FFD, terrestrial acidification (TA, freshwater eutrophication (FE and marine eutrophication (ME. A system expansion approach was adopted to include a fossil reference. All three crops showed significantly lower CC and FFD potentials than the fossil reference, but higher TA and FE potentials, with nitrogen fertilizer production and fertilizer-induced emissions identified as hot spots. Miscanthus performed best and changing the input substrate from maize to miscanthus led to average reductions of −66% CC; −74% FFD; −63% FE; −60% ME and −21% TA. These results show that perennial C4 grasses and miscanthus in particular have the potential to improve the sustainability of the biogas sector.

Using Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) electronic components for space applications is a long standing idea. Indeed the difference in processing performance and energy efficiency between radiation hardened components and COTS components is so important that COTS components are very attractive for use in mass and power constrained systems. However using COTS components in space is not straightforward as one must account with the effects of the space environment on the COTS components behavior. In the frame of the ESA funded activity called HighPerformance COTS Based Computer, Airbus Defense and Space and its subcontractor OHB CGS have developed and prototyped a versatile COTS based architecture for highperformance processing. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: in a first section we will start by recapitulating the interests and constraints of using COTS components for space applications; then we will briefly describe existing fault mitigation architectures and present our solution for fault mitigation based on a component called the SmartIO; in the last part of the paper we will describe the prototyping activities executed during the HiP CBC project.

Managing distributed high-performance storage systems is complex and, although sharing common ground with traditional network and systems management, presents unique storage-related issues. Integration technologies and frameworks exist to help manage distributed network and system environments. Industry-driven consortia provide open forums where vendors and users cooperate to leverage solutions. But these new approaches to open management fall short addressing the needs of scalable, distributed storage. We discuss the motivation and requirements for storage system management (SSM) capabilities and describe how SSM manages distributed servers and storage resource objects in the HighPerformance Storage System (HPSS), a new storage facility for data-intensive applications and large-scale computing. Modem storage systems, such as HPSS, require many SSM capabilities, including server and resource configuration control, performance monitoring, quality of service, flexible policies, file migration, file repacking, accounting, and quotas. We present results of initial HPSS SSM development including design decisions and implementation trade-offs. We conclude with plans for follow-on work and provide storage-related recommendations for vendors and standards groups seeking enterprise-wide management solutions.

For the large-scale sustainable implementation of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells in vehicles, high-performance electrocatalysts with low platinum consumption are desirable for use as cathode material during the oxygen reduction reaction in fuel cells. Here we report a carbon black-supported cost-effective, efficient and durable platinum single-atom electrocatalyst with carbon monoxide/methanol tolerance for the cathodic oxygen reduction reaction. The acidic single-cell with such a catalyst as cathode delivers highperformance, with power density up to 680 mW cm-2 at 80 °C with a low platinum loading of 0.09 mgPt cm-2, corresponding to a platinum utilization of 0.13 gPt kW-1 in the fuel cell. Good fuel cell durability is also observed. Theoretical calculations reveal that the main effective sites on such platinum single-atom electrocatalysts are single-pyridinic-nitrogen-atom-anchored single-platinum-atom centres, which are tolerant to carbon monoxide/methanol, but highly active for the oxygen reduction reaction.

Although high-performance computing traditionally focuses on the efficient execution of large-scale applications, both energy and power have become critical concerns when approaching exascale. Drastic increases in the power consumption of supercomputers affect significantly their operating costs and failure rates. In modern microprocessor architectures, equipped with dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) and CPU clock modulation (throttling), the power consumption may be controlled in software. Additionally, network interconnect, such as Infiniband, may be exploited to maximize energy savings while the application performance loss and frequency switching overheads must be carefully balanced. This work first studies two important collective communication operations, all-to-all and allgather and proposes energy saving strategies on the per-call basis. Next, it targets point-to-point communications to group them into phases and apply frequency scaling to them to save energy by exploiting the architectural and communication stalls. Finally, it proposes an automatic runtime system which combines both collective and point-to-point communications into phases, and applies throttling to them apart from DVFS to maximize energy savings. The experimental results are presented for NAS parallel benchmark problems as well as for the realistic parallel electronic structure calculations performed by the widely used quantum chemistry package GAMESS. Close to the maximum energy savings were obtained with a substantially low performance loss on the given platform.

The scientific, technical, and economic importance of the issues discussed here presents a clear agenda for future research in computational seismology. In this way these problems will drive advances in high-performance computing in the field of seismology. There is a broad community that will benefit from this work, including the petroleum industry, research geophysicists, engineers concerned with seismic hazard mitigation, and governments charged with enforcing a comprehensive test ban treaty. These advances may also lead to new applications for seismological research. The recent application of high-resolution seismic imaging of the shallow subsurface for the environmental remediation industry is an example of this activity. This report makes the following recommendations: (1) focused efforts to develop validated documented software for seismological computations should be supported, with special emphasis on scalable algorithms for parallel processors; (2) the education of seismologists in high-performance computing technologies and methodologies should be improved; (3) collaborations between seismologists and computational scientists and engineers should be increased; (4) the infrastructure for archiving, disseminating, and processing large volumes of seismological data should be improved.

The demands placed on the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) control system due to large distances, high bandwidth and fast response time required for operation will require a fresh approach to the data communications architecture of the accelerator. The prototype design effort aims at providing deterministic communication across the accelerator complex with a response time of < 100 ms and total bandwidth of 2 Gbits/sec. It will offer a consistent interface for a large number of equipment types, from vacuum pumps to beam position monitors, providing appropriate communications performance for each equipment type. It will consist of highly parallel links to all equipment: those with computing resources, non-intelligent direct control interfaces, and data concentrators. This system will give each piece of equipment a dedicated link of fixed bandwidth to the control system. Application programs will have access to all accelerator devices which will be memory mapped into a global virtual addressing scheme. Links to devices in the same geographical area will be multiplexed using commercial Time Division Multiplexing equipment. Low-level access will use reflective memory techniques, eliminating processing overhead and complexity of traditional data communication protocols. The use of commercial standards and equipment will enable a highperformance system to be built at low cost

The demands placed on the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) control system due to large distances, high bandwidth and fast response time required for operation will require a fresh approach to the data communications architecture of the accelerator. The prototype design effort aims at providing deterministic communication across the accelerator complex with a response time of <100 ms and total bandwidth of 2 Gbits/sec. It will offer a consistent interface for a large number of equipment types, from vacuum pumps to beam position monitors, providing appropriate communications performance for each equipment type. It will consist of highly parallel links to all equipments: those with computing resources, non-intelligent direct control interfaces, and data concentrators. This system will give each piece of equipment a dedicated link of fixed bandwidth to the control system. Application programs will have access to all accelerator devices which will be memory mapped into a global virtual addressing scheme. Links to devices in the same geographical area will be multiplexed using commercial Time Division Multiplexing equipment. Low-level access will use reflective memory techniques, eliminating processing overhead and complexity of traditional data communication protocols. The use of commercial standards and equipment will enable a highperformance system to be built at low cost. 1 fig

Remarkable progress has been made in both theory and applications of all important areas of control. The theory is rich and very sophisticated. Some beautiful applications of control theory are presently being made in aerospace, biomedical engineering, industrial engineering, robotics, economics, power systems, etc. Unfortunately, the same assessment of progress does not hold in general for computations in control theory. Control Theory is lagging behind other areas of science and engineering in this respect. Nowadays there is a revolution going on in the world of highperformance scientific computing. Many powerful computers with vector and parallel processing have been built and have been available in recent years. These supercomputers offer very high speed in computations. Highly efficient software, based on powerful algorithms, has been developed to use on these advanced computers, and has also contributed to increased performance. While workers in many areas of science and engineering have taken great advantage of these hardware and software developments, control scientists and engineers, unfortunately, have not been able to take much advantage of these developments

Full Text Available Facilitation of growth is more about good, trustworthy contacts than capital. Trust is a driving force for business creation, and to create a global business you need to build a team that is capable of meeting the challenge. Trust is a key factor in team building and a needed enabler for cooperation. In general, trust building is a slow process, but it can be accelerated with open interaction and good communication skills. The fast-growing and ever-changing nature of global business sets demands for cooperation and team building, especially for startup companies. Trust building needs personal knowledge and regular face-to-face interaction, but it also requires empathy, respect, and genuine listening. Trust increases communication, and rich and open communication is essential for the building of high-performing teams. Other building materials are a shared vision, clear roles and responsibilities, willingness for cooperation, and supporting and encouraging leadership. This study focuses on trust in high-performing teams. It asks whether it is possible to manage trust and which tools and operation models should be used to speed up the building of trust. In this article, preliminary results from the authors’ research are presented to highlight the importance of sharing critical information and having a high level of communication through constant interaction.

Highperformance fibers are characterized by their superior properties compared to the traditional textile fibers. High strength fibers have high modules, high strength to weight ratio, high chemical resistance, and usually high temperature resistance. It is used in application where superior properties are needed such as bulletproof vests, ropes and cables, cut resistant products, load tendons for giant scientific balloons, fishing rods, tennis racket strings, parachute cords, adhesives and sealants, protective apparel and tire cords. Unfortunately, Ultraviolet (UV) radiation causes serious degradation to the most of highperformance fibers. UV lights, either natural or artificial, cause organic compounds to decompose and degrade, because the energy of the photons of UV light is high enough to break chemical bonds causing chain scission. This work is aiming at achieving maximum protection of highperformance fibers using sheathing approaches. The sheaths proposed are of lightweight to maintain the advantage of the highperformance fiber that is the high strength to weight ratio. This study involves developing three different types of sheathing. The product of interest that need be protected from UV is braid from PBO. First approach is extruding a sheath from Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) loaded with different rutile TiO2 % nanoparticles around the braid from the PBO. The results of this approach showed that LDPE sheath loaded with 10% TiO2 by weight achieved the highest protection compare to 0% and 5% TiO2. The protection here is judged by strength loss of PBO. This trend noticed in different weathering environments, where the sheathed samples were exposed to UV-VIS radiations in different weatheromter equipments as well as exposure to high altitude environment using NASA BRDL balloon. The second approach is focusing in developing a protective porous membrane from polyurethane loaded with rutile TiO2 nanoparticles. Membrane from polyurethane loaded with 4

Authors Jim Jeffers and James Reinders spent two years helping educate customers about the prototype and pre-production hardware before Intel introduced the first Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor. They have distilled their own experiences coupled with insights from many expert customers, Intel Field Engineers, Application Engineers and Technical Consulting Engineers, to create this authoritative first book on the essentials of programming for this new architecture and these new products. This book is useful even before you ever touch a system with an Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor. To ensure that your applications run at maximum efficiency, the authors emphasize key techniques for programming any modern parallel computing system whether based on Intel Xeon processors, Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors, or other highperformance microprocessors. Applying these techniques will generally increase your program performance on any system, and better prepare you for Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors and the Intel MIC architecture. It off...

This thesis presents the development of high-performance blended cements from industrial by-products. To overcome the low-early strength of blended cements, several chemicals were studied as the activators for cement hydration. Sodium sulfate was discovered as the best activator. The blending proportions were optimized by Taguchi experimental design. The optimized blended cements containing up to 80% fly ash performed better than Type I cement in strength development and durability. Maintaining a constant cement content, concrete produced from the optimized blended cements had equal or higher strength and higher durability than that produced from Type I cement alone. The key for the activation mechanism was the reaction between added SO4 2- and Ca2+ dissolved from cement hydration products.

confinement is achieved owing to strong internal transport barriers (ITBs), are reported. In a high current plasma with an L-mode edge, deuterium-tritium-equivalent fusion power gain, Q DT eq =0.5 was sustained for 0.8 s (∼ energy confinement time) by adjusting plasma beta precisely using feedback control of stored energy. In a high triangularity plasma with an ELMy H-mode edge, the shrinkage of reversed shear region was suppressed and quasi steady sustainment of high confinement was achieved by raising the poloidal beta and enhancing the bootstrap current peaked at the ITB layer. High bootstrap current fraction (∼80%) was obtained in a high q regime (q 95 ∼9), which leaded to full non-inductive current drive condition. The normalized beta (β N ) of ∼ 2 and H-factor of H 89 ∼3.5 (HH 98y2 ∼2.2) were sustained for 2.7 s (∼ 6 times energy confinement time). (author)

The growing attention to the cultural value and the potential touristic attraction of the historic towns has led to increasing activities of rehabilitation and conservation of the historical built heritage. Chemical treatments have become a common practice for the protection of the stone building surface against the decay agents and traditional methods of protection, such as the application of sacrificial layers, have been even more neglected. The use of chemical products on large scale works on the historical built heritage draws the attention towards the sustainability of the conservation treatments, that involve peculiar features with relation to the different types of stones. Sustainability is undoubtedly in terms of human and environmental impact of the used products, so that the use of new formulations based on aqueous solvent should be preferred. Sustainability also means the equilibrium between the required performances of the treatments and the preservation of the original stone properties (colour, permeability, etc), namely harmlessness and effectiveness of the treatments. This can be a critical aspect when we deal with very porous stones, namely having porosity between 30-40%, that are widely used in many countries as traditional building materials. In most cases no information - or very general recommendations - is reported in the technical sheets of the conservation products with reference to the application to these types of stones. Relevant problems of compatibility can arise from the significant amounts absorbed by the high porous structure, as well as in terms of cost effectiveness of the treatments. In this work several calcarenites with different petro-physic characteristics and porosity between 30 and 45% are concerned for the assessment of the performance of two commercial water based products for stone protection, respectively an alcoxy-siloxane with low molecular weight and a modified organo-silane. This activity is a part of the Apulia

With the increasing environmental concerns such as sustainability and end-of-life disposal challenges, materials derived from renewable resources such as nanocellulose have been strongly advocated as potential replacements for packaging materials. Nanocellulose can be extracted from various plant resources through mechanical and chemical ways. Nanocellulose with its...

responsibility. Sustainable supply chain initiatives like supplier environmental and social collaboration can play a significant role in achieving the "triple bottom line" of social, environmental, and economic benefits. Supplier selection plays an important role in the management of a supply chain......Sustainable supply chain management has received much attention from practitioners and scholars over the past decade owing to the significant attention given by consumers, profit and not-for-profit organizations, local communities, legislation and regulation to environmental, social and corporate....... Traditionally, organizations consider criteria such as price, quality, flexibility, etc. when evaluating supplier performance. While the articles on the selection and evaluation of suppliers are abundant, those that consider sustainability issues are rather limited. This paper explores sustainable supply chain...

Surrounded by the ocean, Taiwan has been increasingly developing coastal tourism projects. Concerns that negative impacts might be brought about by prosperous tourism have resulted in a recent focus on sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism involves policies that acknowledge the interdependences among the environment, the community, and the economy. The goal of sustainable tourism is to enhance and protect the environment while satisfying basic human requirements, as well as those of the co...

Full Text Available In the developed stock markets the corporate governance aspect is crucial in the stock portfolio selection process for investor seeking to achieve shareholder value sustainability. In the emerging markets the importance of the corporate governance role just starts to be realized by the investors and by the corporate managers. The present research, looking at the stock performance leaders and laggards, analyzes whether the corporate governance system matters to achieve long-term shareholder value within the Central and Eastern European stock markets universe. Corporate governance quality was assessed and compared among the out- and underperformers. The financial results plausibility and the ownership structure were considered as well. Additionally, the authors analyzed whether the quality of corporate governance influences the economic performance of the company. The obtained results provide the proof that the corporate governance does matter as the market outperformers have above average corporate governance quality and provide trustworthy financial results more often than the underperforming companies. Besides, well-governed companies are also able to deliver more attractive financial results.

The description and usage of the utilities for the dispersion calculation model PHYSIC were summarized. The model was developed in the study of developing highperformance SPEEDI with the purpose of introducing meteorological forecast function into the environmental emergency response system. The procedure of PHYSIC calculation consists of three steps; preparation of relevant files, creation and submission of JCL, and graphic output of results. A user can carry out the above procedure with the help of the Geographical Data Processing Utility, the Model Control Utility, and the Graphic Output Utility. (author)

A highperformance Fastbus slave interface ASIC is presented. The Fastbus slave integrated circuit (FASIC) is a programmable device, enabling its direct use in many different applications. The FASIC acts as an interface between Fastbus and a 'standard' processor/memory bus. It can work stand-alone or together with a microprocessor. A set of address mapping windows can map Fastbus addresses to convenient memory addresses and at the same time act as address decoding logic. Data rates of 100 MBytes/s to Fastbus can be obtained using an internal FIFO buffer in the FASIC. (orig.)

The main objectives of this paper are to: firstly, identify key issues related to sustainable intelligent buildings (environmental, social, economic and technological factors); develop a conceptual model for the selection of the appropriate KPIs; secondly, test critically stakeholder's perceptions and values of selected KPIs intelligent buildings; and thirdly develop a new model for measuring the level of sustainability for sustainable intelligent buildings. This paper uses a consensus-based model (Sustainable Built Environment Tool- SuBETool), which is analysed using the analytical hierarchical process (AHP) for multi-criteria decision-making. The use of the multi-attribute model for priority setting in the sustainability assessment of intelligent buildings is introduced. The paper commences by reviewing the literature on sustainable intelligent buildings research and presents a pilot-study investigating the problems of complexity and subjectivity. This study is based upon a survey perceptions held by selected stakeholders and the value they attribute to selected KPIs. It is argued that the benefit of the new proposed model (SuBETool) is a 'tool' for 'comparative' rather than an absolute measurement. It has the potential to provide useful lessons from current sustainability assessment methods for strategic future of sustainable intelligent buildings in order to improve a building's performance and to deliver objective outcomes. Findings of this survey enrich the field of intelligent buildings in two ways. Firstly, it gives a detailed insight into the selection of sustainable building indicators, as well as their degree of importance. Secondly, it tesst critically stakeholder's perceptions and values of selected KPIs intelligent buildings. It is concluded that the priority levels for selected criteria is largely dependent on the integrated design team, which includes the client, architects, engineers and facilities managers

A high end visual display for High Energy Nuclear Physics (HENP) detectors is necessary because of the sheer size and complexity of the detector. For BNL this display will be of special interest because of STAR and ATLAS. To load, rotate, query, and debug simulation code with a modern detector simply takes too long even on a powerful work station. To visualize the HENP detectors with maximal performance we have developed software with the following characteristics. We develop a visual display of HENP detectors on BNL multiprocessor visualization server at multiple level of detail. We work with general and generic detector framework consistent with ROOT, GAUDI etc, to avoid conflicting with the many graphic development groups associated with specific detectors like STAR and ATLAS. We develop advanced OpenGL features such as transparency and polarized stereoscopy. We enable collaborative viewing of detector and events by directly running the analysis in BNL stereoscopic theatre. We construct enhanced interactiv...

Institutions such as NASA, ESA or JAXA find solutions to distribute data from their missions to the scientific community, and their long term archives. This is a complex problem, as it includes a vast amount of data, several geographically distributed archives, heterogeneous architectures with heterogeneous networks, and users spread around the world. We propose a novel architecture (HIDDRA) that solves this problem aiming to reduce user intervention in data acquisition and processing. HIDDRA is a modular system that provides a highly efficient parallel multiprotocol download engine, using a publish/subscribe policy which helps the final user to obtain data of interest transparently. Our system can deal simultaneously with multiple protocols (HTTP,HTTPS, FTP, GridFTP among others) to obtain the maximum bandwidth, reducing the workload in data server and increasing flexibility. It can also provide high reliability and fault tolerance, as several sources of data can be used to perform one file download. HIDDRA architecture can be arranged into a data distribution network deployed on several sites that can cooperate to provide former features. HIDDRA has been addressed by the 2009 e-IRG Report on Data Management as a promising initiative for data interoperability. Our first prototype has been evaluated in collaboration with the ESAC centre in Villafranca del Castillo (Spain) that shows a high scalability and performance, opening a wide spectrum of opportunities. Some preliminary results have been published in the Journal of Astrophysics and Space Science [1]. [1] D. Higuero, J.M. Tirado, J. Carretero, F. Félix, and A. de La Fuente. HIDDRA: a highly independent data distribution and retrieval architecture for space observation missions. Astrophysics and Space Science, 321(3):169-175, 2009

The California Energy Commission sponsored this roadmap to guide energy efficiency research and deployment for highperformance cleanrooms and laboratories. Industries and institutions utilizing these building types (termed high-tech buildings) have played an important part in the vitality of the California economy. This roadmap's key objective to present a multi-year agenda to prioritize and coordinate research efforts. It also addresses delivery mechanisms to get the research products into the market. Because of the importance to the California economy, it is appropriate and important for California to take the lead in assessing the energy efficiency research needs, opportunities, and priorities for this market. In addition to the importance to California's economy, energy demand for this market segment is large and growing (estimated at 9400 GWH for 1996, Mills et al. 1996). With their 24hr. continuous operation, high tech facilities are a major contributor to the peak electrical demand. Laboratories and cleanrooms constitute the high tech building market, and although each building type has its unique features, they are similar in that they are extremely energy intensive, involve special environmental considerations, have very high ventilation requirements, and are subject to regulations-primarily safety driven-that tend to have adverse energy implications. High-tech buildings have largely been overlooked in past energy efficiency research. Many industries and institutions utilize laboratories and cleanrooms. As illustrated, there are many industries operating cleanrooms in California. These include semiconductor manufacturing, semiconductor suppliers, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, disk drive manufacturing, flat panel displays, automotive, aerospace, food, hospitals, medical devices, universities, and federal research facilities

Two type of highperformance scenarios have been produced in JET during DTE1 campaign. One of them is the well known and extensively used in the past ELM-free hot ion H-mode scenario which has two distinct regions- plasma core and the edge transport barrier. The results obtained during DTE-1 campaign with D, DT and pure T plasmas confirms our previous conclusion that the core transport scales as a gyroBohm in the inner half of plasma volume, recovers its Bohm nature closer to the separatrix and behaves as ion neoclassical in the transport barrier. Measurements on the top of the barrier suggest that the width of the barrier is dependent upon isotope and moreover suggest that fast ions play a key role. The other highperformance scenario is a relatively recently developed Optimised Shear Scenario with small or slightly negative magnetic shear in plasma core. Different mechanisms of Internal Transport Barrier (ITB) formation have been tested by predictive modelling and the results are compared with experimentally observed phenomena. The experimentally observed non-penetration of the heavy impurities through the strong ITB which contradicts to a prediction of the conventional neo-classical theory is discussed. (author)

Recently, there has been attempts to move common satellite tasks to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UAVs are significantly cheaper to buy than satellites and easier to deploy on an as-needed basis. The more benign radiation environment also allows for an aggressive adoption of state-of-the-art commercial computational devices, which increases the amount of data that can be collected. There are a number of commercial computing devices currently available that are well-suited to high-performance computing. These devices range from specialized computational devices, such as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and digital signal processors (DSPs), to traditional computing platforms, such as microprocessors. Even though the radiation environment is relatively benign, these devices could be susceptible to single-event effects. In this paper, we will present radiation data for high-performance computing devices in a accelerated neutron environment. These devices include a multi-core digital signal processor, two field-programmable gate arrays, and a microprocessor. From these results, we found that all of these devices are suitable for many airplane environments without reliability problems.

Two type of highperformance scenarios have been produced in JET during DTE1 campaign. One of them is the well known and extensively used in the past ELM-free hot ion H-mode scenario which has two distinct regions- plasma core and the edge transport barrier. The results obtained during DTE-1 campaign with D, DT and pure T plasmas confirms our previous conclusion that the core transport scales as a gyroBohm in the inner half of plasma volume, recovers its Bohm nature closer to the separatrix and behaves as ion neoclassical in the transport barrier. Measurements on the top of the barrier suggest that the width of the barrier is dependent upon isotope and moreover suggest that fast ions play a key role. The other highperformance scenario is a relatively recently developed Optimised Shear Scenario with small or slightly negative magnetic shear in plasma core. Different mechanisms of Internal Transport Barrier (ITB) formation have been tested by predictive modelling and the results are compared with experimentally observed phenomena. The experimentally observed non-penetration of the heavy impurities through the strong ITB which contradicts to a prediction of the conventional neo-classical theory is discussed. (author)

The manufacturing industry aims to produce many products of high quality with relatively less cost and time. Different cutting parameters affect the machining performance of surface roughness, cutting force, and material removal rate. Nevertheless, a few studies reported on the effects of sustainable factors such as power consumed, cycle time during machining, and tool life on the dry turning of AISI 316. The present study aims to evaluate the machining performance of coated carbide in the machining of hard steel AISI 316 under the dry turning process. The influence of cutting parameters of cutting speed, feed rate, and depth of cut with their five (5) levels is established by a central composite design. Highly significant parameters were determined by analysis of variance (ANOVA), and the main effects of power consumed and time during machining, surface roughness, and tool wear were observed. Results showed that the cutting speed was proportional to power consumption and tool wear. Meanwhile, insignificant to surface roughness, feed rate most significantly affected surface roughness and power consumption followed by depth of cut.

The CMS experiment has been designed with a 2-level trigger system. The first level is implemented using custom-designed electronics. The second level is the so-called High Level Trigger (HLT), a streamlined version of the CMS offline reconstruction software running on a computer farm. For Run II of the Large Hadron Collider, the increases in center-of-mass energy and luminosity will raise the event rate to a level challenging for the HLT algorithms. The increase in the number of interactions per bunch crossing, on average 25 in 2012, and expected to be around 40 in Run II, will be an additional complication. We present here the expected performance of the main triggers that will be used during the 2015 data taking campaign, paying particular attention to the new approaches that have been developed to cope with the challenges of the new run. This includes improvements in HLT electron and photon reconstruction as well as better performing muon triggers. We will also present the performance of the improved trac...

A spacer grid in a LWR fuel assembly is a key structural component to support fuel rods and to enhance the heat transfer from the fuel rod to the coolant. In this research, the main research items are the development of inherent and highperformance spacer grid shapes, the establishment of mechanical/structural analysis and test technology, and the set-up of basic test facilities for the spacer grid. The main research areas and results are as follows. 1. 18 different spacer grid candidates have been invented and applied for domestic and US patents. Among the candidates 16 are chosen from the patent. 2. Two kinds of spacer grids are finally selected for the advanced LWR fuel after detailed performance tests on the candidates and commercial spacer grids from a mechanical/structural point of view. According to the test results the features of the selected spacer grids are better than those of the commercial spacer grids. 3. Four kinds of basic test facilities are set up and the relevant test technologies are established. 4. Mechanical/structural analysis models and technology for spacer grid performance are developed and the analysis results are compared with the test results to enhance the reliability of the models.

In the recent years the massively parallel highperformance computers became the standard instruments for solving the forward and inverse problems in seismology. The respective software packages dedicated to forward and inverse waveform modelling specially designed for such computers (SPECFEM3D, SES3D) became mature and widely available. These packages achieve significant computational performance and provide researchers with an opportunity to solve problems of bigger size at higher resolution within a shorter time. However, a typical seismic inversion process contains various activities that are beyond the common solver functionality. They include management of information on seismic events and stations, 3D models, observed and synthetic seismograms, pre-processing of the observed signals, computation of misfits and adjoint sources, minimization of misfits, and process workflow management. These activities are time consuming, seldom sufficiently automated, and therefore represent a bottleneck that can substantially offset performance benefits provided by even the most powerful modern supercomputers. Furthermore, a typical system architecture of modern supercomputing platforms is oriented towards the maximum computational performance and provides limited standard facilities for automation of the supporting activities. We present a prototype solution that automates all aspects of the seismic inversion process and is tuned for the modern massively parallel highperformance computing systems. We address several major aspects of the solution architecture, which include (1) design of an inversion state database for tracing all relevant aspects of the entire solution process, (2) design of an extensible workflow management framework, (3) integration with wave propagation solvers, (4) integration with optimization packages, (5) computation of misfits and adjoint sources, and (6) process monitoring. The inversion state database represents a hierarchical structure with

The World Nuclear Association (WNA) has developed internationally standardized reporting (‘Checklist’) for uranium mining and processing sites. This reporting is to achieve widespread utilities/miners agreement on a list of topics/indicators for common use in demonstrating miners’ adherence to strong sustainable development performance. Nuclear utilities are often required to evaluate the sustainable development performance of their suppliers as part of a utility operational management system. In the present case, nuclear utilities are buyers of uranium supplies from uranium miners and such purchases are often achieved through the utility uranium or fuel supply management function. This Checklist is an evaluation tool which has been created to collect information from uranium miners’ available annual reports, data series, and measurable indicators on a wide range of sustainable development topics to verify that best practices in this field are implemented throughout uranium mining and processing sites. The Checklist has been developed to align with the WNA’s policy document Sustaining Global Best Practices in Uranium Mining and Processing: Principles for Managing Radiation, Health and Safety, and Waste and the Environment which encompasses all applicable aspects of sustainable development to uranium mining and processing. The eleven sections of the Checklist are: 1. Adherence to Sustainable Development; 2. Health, Safety and Environmental Protection; 3. Compliance; 4. Social Responsibility and Stakeholder Engagement; 5. Management of Hazardous Materials; 6. Quality Management Systems; 7. Accidents and Emergencies; 8. Transport of Hazardous Materials; 9. Systematic Approach to Training; 10. Security of Sealed Radioactive Sources and Nuclear Substances; 11. Decommissioning and Site Closure. The Checklist benefits from many years of nuclear utility experience in verifying the sustainable development performance of uranium mining and processing sites. This

Sustainable development cannot be prescribed – rather, it results from conscious personal choices in government, business and NGOs. This thought-provoking book explores both the origins and future of the global sustainable development movement, and provides an original overview of the driving forces

concerns. This paper contributes to the research on integrating sustainability into companies’ daily activities both directly and indirectly. It analyses the extent to which top management’s commitment to sustainability directly affects structural and social alignment and the effectiveness of measurement...

This article highlights the role of sustainability appraisal for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Traditional HEI appraisal systems lack a way to assess the integration of sustainability principles reflecting societal needs with the consequences of research, education and management of HEIs. Two appraisal systems are discussed. The Austrian…

Many processes in engineering and sciences involve the evolution of interfaces. Among the mathematical frameworks developed to model these types of problems, the phase-field method has emerged as a possible solution. Phase-fields nonetheless lead to complex nonlinear, high-order partial differential equations, whose solution poses mathematical and computational challenges. Guaranteeing some of the physical properties of the equations has lead to the development of efficient algorithms and discretizations capable of recovering said properties by construction [2, 5]. This work builds-up on these ideas, and proposes novel discretization strategies that guarantee numerical energy dissipation for both conserved and non-conserved phase-field models. The temporal discretization is based on a novel method which relies on Taylor series and ensures strong energy stability. It is second-order accurate, and can also be rendered linear to speed-up the solution process [4]. The spatial discretization relies on Isogeometric Analysis, a finite element method that possesses the k-refinement technology and enables the generation of high-order, high-continuity basis functions. These basis functions are well suited to handle the high-order operators present in phase-field models. Two-dimensional and three dimensional results of the Allen-Cahn, Cahn-Hilliard, Swift-Hohenberg and phase-field crystal equation will be presented, which corroborate the theoretical findings, and illustrate the robustness of the method. Results related to more challenging examples, namely the Navier-Stokes Cahn-Hilliard and a diusion-reaction Cahn-Hilliard system, will also be presented. The implementation was done in PetIGA and PetIGA-MF, high-performance Isogeometric Analysis frameworks [1, 3], designed to handle non-linear, time-dependent problems.

The LHCb detector was conceived to operate with an average Luminosity of $2 \\times 10^{32}$ cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. During the last year of LHC run, the whole apparatus has shown to be able to perfectly acquire and manage data produced at a Luminosity as high as $4 \\times 10^{32}$ cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. In these conditions, all sub-detectors operated at average particle rates higher than the design ones and in particular the Multi-Wire Proportional Chambers equipping the Muon System had to sustain a particle rate as high as 250 kHz/cm$^{2}$. In order to study the possibility of increasing the Luminosity of operation of the whole experiment several tests were performed. The effective beam Luminosity at the interaction point of LHCb was increased in several steps up to $10^{33}$ cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ and in each step the behavior of all the detectors in the Muon System was recorded. The data analysis has allowed to study the performance of the Muon System as a function of the LHC Luminosity and the results are r...

Climate change, increase in population and intensification of land use pose a great challenge for sustainable handling of soils. Intelligent landuse systems are able to minimize and/or avoid soil erosion and loss of soil fertility. A successful application of such systems requires area-wide soil information with high resolution. Containing three consecutive steps, the project INE-2-H („innovative sustainable landuse") at the University of Tuebingen is about creating high-resolution soil information using Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) techniques to develop sustainable landuse strategies. Input data includes soil data from fieldwork (texture and carbon content), the official digital soil and geological map (1:50.000) as well as a wide selection of local, complex and combined terrain parameters. First, soil maps have been created using the DSM approach and Random Forest (RF). Due to high resolution (10x10 m pixels), those maps show a more detailed spatial variability of soil information compared to the official maps used. Root mean square errors (RMSE) of the modelled maps vary from 2.11 % to 6.87 % and the coefficients of determination (R²) go from 0.42 to 0.68. Second, soil erosion potentials have been estimated according to the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE). Long-term average annual soil loss ranges from 0.56 to 24.23 [t/ha/a]. Third, combining high-resolution erosion potentials with expert-knowledge of local farmers will result in a landuse system adapted to local conditions. This system will include sustainable strategies reducing soil erosion and conserving soil fertility.

A systematic impact assessment of stochastic interest and inflation rates on the analysis of energy investments is presented. A real-options algorithm has been created for this task. Constant interest rates incorporating high risk premium have been extensively used for economic calculations, within the framework of traditional direct cash flow methods, thus favouring immediate, irreversible investments in the expense of, sometimes, insubstantially low anticipated yields. In this article, not only incomes and expenses but also interest and inflation rates are considered stochastically evolving according to specific probabilistic models. The numerical experiments indicated that the stochastic interest rate forecasts fluctuate in such low levels that may signal delayed investment entry in favour of higher expected yields. The implementation of stochastically evolving interest rates in energy investment analysis may have a controversial effect on sustainability. Displacements of inefficient plants may be significantly delayed, thus prolonging high CO 2 emission rates. Under the current CO 2 allowance prices or their medium-term forecasts, this situation may not be improved and flexible policy interventions may be necessitated. (author)

A high end visual display for High Energy Nuclear Physics (HENP) detectors is necessary because of the sheer size and complexity of the detector. For BNL this display will be of special interest because of STAR and ATLAS. To load, rotate, query, and debug simulation code with a modern detector simply takes too long even on a powerful work station. To visualize the HENP detectors with maximal performance we have developed software with the following characteristics. We develop a visual display of HENP detectors on BNL multiprocessor visualization server at multiple level of detail. We work with general and generic detector framework consistent with ROOT, GAUDI etc, to avoid conflicting with the many graphic development groups associated with specific detectors like STAR and ATLAS. We develop advanced OpenGL features such as transparency and polarized stereoscopy. We enable collaborative viewing of detector and events by directly running the analysis in BNL stereoscopic theatre. We construct enhanced interactive control, including the ability to slice, search and mark areas of the detector. We incorporate the ability to make a high quality still image of a view of the detector and the ability to generate animations and a fly through of the detector and output these to MPEG or VRML models. We develop data compression hardware and software so that remote interactive visualization will be possible among dispersed collaborators. We obtain real time visual display for events accumulated during simulations

This project aims to capitalize on insights developed from recent high-dose self-ion irradiation experiments in order to develop and test the next generation of optimized ODS alloys needed to meet the nuclear community's need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components, especially with enhanced resistance to void swelling. Two of these insights are that ferrite grains swell earlier than tempered martensite grains, and oxide dispersions currently produced only in ferrite grains require a high level of uniformity and stability to be successful. An additional insight is that ODS particle stability is dependent on as-yet unidentified compositional combinations of dispersoid and alloy matrix, such as dispersoids are stable in MA957 to doses greater than 200 dpa but dissolve in MA956 at doses less than 200 dpa. These findings focus attention on candidate next-generation alloys which address these concerns. Collaboration with two Japanese groups provides this project with two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing for unirradiated properties, but have not yet been evaluated for their irradiation performance. The first set of candidate alloys are dual phase (ferrite + martensite) ODS alloys with oxide particles uniformly distributed in both ferrite and martensite phases. The second set of candidate alloys are ODS alloys containing non-standard dispersoid compositions with controllable oxide particle sizes, phases and interfaces.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is unparalleled in its ability to visualize anatomical structure and function non-invasively with high spatial and temporal resolution. Yet to overcome the low sensitivity inherent in inductive detection of weakly polarized nuclear spins, the vast majority of clinical MRI scanners employ superconducting magnets producing very high magnetic fields. Commonly found at 1.5-3 tesla (T), these powerful magnets are massive and have very strict infrastructure demands that preclude operation in many environments. MRI scanners are costly to purchase, site, and maintain, with the purchase price approaching $1 M per tesla (T) of magnetic field. We present here a remarkably simple, non-cryogenic approach to high-performance human MRI at ultra-low magnetic field, whereby modern under-sampling strategies are combined with fully-refocused dynamic spin control using steady-state free precession techniques. At 6.5 mT (more than 450 times lower than clinical MRI scanners) we demonstrate (2.5 × 3.5 × 8.5) mm3 imaging resolution in the living human brain using a simple, open-geometry electromagnet, with 3D image acquisition over the entire brain in 6 minutes. We contend that these practical ultra-low magnetic field implementations of MRI (standards for affordable (

Achievement of sustainability in metal life cycles from mining of virgin ore to consumer and industrial devices to end-of-life products requires greatly increased recycling rates and improved processing of metals using conventional and green chemistry technologies. Electronic and other high-tech products containing precious, toxic, and specialty metals usually have short lifetimes and low recycling rates. Products containing these metals generally are incinerated, discarded as waste in landfills, or dismantled in informal recycling using crude and environmentally irresponsible procedures. Low recycling rates of metals coupled with increasing demand for high-tech products containing them necessitate increased mining with attendant environmental, health, energy, water, and carbon-footprint consequences. In this tutorial review, challenges to achieving metal sustainability, including projected use of urban mining, in present high-tech society are presented; health, environmental, and economic incentives for various government, industry, and public stakeholders to improve metal sustainability are discussed; a case for technical improvements, including use of molecular recognition, in selective metal separation technology, especially for metal recovery from dilute feed stocks is given; and global consequences of continuing on the present path are examined.

Aquifer overexploitation could significantly impact crop production in the United States because 60% of irrigation relies on groundwater. Groundwater depletion in the irrigated High Plains and California Central Valley accounts for ∼50% of groundwater depletion in the United States since 1900. A newly developed High Plains recharge map shows that high recharge in the northern High Plains results in sustainable pumpage, whereas lower recharge in the central and southern High Plains has resulted in focused depletion of 330 km3 of fossil groundwater, mostly recharged during the past 13,000 y. Depletion is highly localized with about a third of depletion occurring in 4% of the High Plains land area. Extrapolation of the current depletion rate suggests that 35% of the southern High Plains will be unable to support irrigation within the next 30 y. Reducing irrigation withdrawals could extend the lifespan of the aquifer but would not result in sustainable management of this fossil groundwater. The Central Valley is a more dynamic, engineered system, with north/south diversions of surface water since the 1950s contributing to ∼7× higher recharge. However, these diversions are regulated because of impacts on endangered species. A newly developed Central Valley Hydrologic Model shows that groundwater depletion since the 1960s, totaling 80 km3, occurs mostly in the south (Tulare Basin) and primarily during droughts. Increasing water storage through artificial recharge of excess surface water in aquifers by up to 3 km3 shows promise for coping with droughts and improving sustainability of groundwater resources in the Central Valley. PMID:22645352

Thermal interface materials in the form of pastes are needed to improve thermal contacts, such as that between a microprocessor and a heat sink of a computer. High-performance and low-cost thermal pastes have been developed in this dissertation by using polyol esters as the vehicle and various nanoscale solid components. The proportion of a solid component needs to be optimized, as an excessive amount degrades the performance, due to the increase in the bond line thickness. The optimum solid volume fraction tends to be lower when the mating surfaces are smoother, and higher when the thermal conductivity is higher. Both a low bond line thickness and a high thermal conductivity help the performance. When the surfaces are smooth, a low bond line thickness can be even more important than a high thermal conductivity, as shown by the outstanding performance of the nanoclay paste of low thermal conductivity in the smooth case (0.009 mum), with the bond line thickness less than 1 mum, as enabled by low storage modulus G', low loss modulus G" and high tan delta. However, for rough surfaces, the thermal conductivity is important. The rheology affects the bond line thickness, but it does not correlate well with the performance. This study found that the structure of carbon black is an important parameter that governs the effectiveness of a carbon black for use in a thermal paste. By using a carbon black with a lower structure (i.e., a lower DBP value), a thermal paste that is more effective than the previously reported carbon black paste was obtained. Graphite nanoplatelet (GNP) was found to be comparable in effectiveness to carbon black (CB) pastes for rough surfaces, but it is less effective for smooth surfaces. At the same filler volume fraction, GNP gives higher thermal conductivity than carbon black paste. At the same pressure, GNP gives higher bond line thickness than CB (Tokai or Cabot). The effectiveness of GNP is limited, due to the high bond line thickness. A

Full Text Available In testing the pre-sale procedure the marketing of drugs and their control in the last ten years, highperformance liquid chromatographyreplaced numerous spectroscopic methods and gas chromatography in the quantitative and qualitative analysis. In the first period of HPLC application it was thought that it would become a complementary method of gas chromatography, however, today it has nearly completely replaced gas chromatography in pharmaceutical analysis. The application of the liquid mobile phase with the possibility of transformation of mobilized polarity during chromatography and all other modifications of mobile phase depending upon the characteristics of substance which are being tested, is a great advantage in the process of separation in comparison to other methods. The greater choice of stationary phase is the next factor which enables realization of good separation. The separation line is connected to specific and sensitive detector systems, spectrafluorimeter, diode detector, electrochemical detector as other hyphernated systems HPLC-MS and HPLC-NMR, are the basic elements on which is based such wide and effective application of the HPLC method. The purpose highperformance liquid chromatography(HPLC analysis of any drugs is to confirm the identity of a drug and provide quantitative results and also to monitor the progress of the therapy of a disease.1 Measuring presented on the Fig. 1. is chromatogram obtained for the plasma of depressed patients 12 h before oral administration of dexamethasone. It may also be used to further our understanding of the normal and disease process in the human body trough biomedical and therapeutically research during investigation before of the drugs registration. The analyses of drugs and metabolites in biological fluids, particularly plasma, serum or urine is one of the most demanding but one of the most common uses of high performance of liquid chromatography. Blood, plasma or

-like compiler for translating CIL bytecode on the CELL-BE. I then introduce a bytecode converter that transforms simple loops in Java bytecode to GPGPU capable code. I then introduce the numeric library for the Common Intermediate Language, NumCIL. I can then utilizing the vector programming model from Num......CIL and map this to the Bohrium framework. The result is a complete system that gives the user a choice of high-level languages with no explicit parallelism, yet seamlessly performs efficient execution on a number of hardware setups....

Glass is a remarkable material but its functionality is significantly enhanced when it is processed or altered to provide added intrinsic capabilities. The overall performance of glass elements in a building can be further enhanced when they are designed to be part of a complete facade system. Finally the facade system delivers the greatest performance to the building owner and occupants when it becomes an essential element of a fully integrated building design. This presentation examines the growing interest in incorporating advanced glazing elements into more comprehensive facade and building systems in a manner that increases comfort, productivity and amenity for occupants, reduces operating costs for building owners, and contributes to improving the health of the planet by reducing overall energy use and negative environmental impacts. We explore the role of glazing systems in dynamic and responsive facades that provide the following functionality: Enhanced sun protection and cooling load control while improving thermal comfort and providing most of the light needed with daylighting; Enhanced air quality and reduced cooling loads using natural ventilation schemes employing the facade as an active air control element; Reduced operating costs by minimizing lighting, cooling and heating energy use by optimizing the daylighting-thermal tradeoffs; Net positive contributions to the energy balance of the building using integrated photovoltaic systems; Improved indoor environments leading to enhanced occupant health, comfort and performance. In addressing these issues facade system solutions must, of course, respect the constraints of latitude, location, solar orientation, acoustics, earthquake and fire safety, etc. Since climate and occupant needs are dynamic variables, in a highperformance building the facade solution have the capacity to respond and adapt to these variable exterior conditions and to changing occupant needs. This responsive performance capability

It can be easily demonstrated, on the basis of realistic estimates of continued high oil costs, that an increasing portion of the growth in energy demand must be supplied by nuclear power and that this one might account for 20% of all the energy production by the end of the century. Such assumptions lead very quickly to the conclusion that the discovery, extraction and processing of the uranium will not be able to follow the demand; the bottleneck will essentially be related to the rate at which the ore can be discovered and extracted, and not to the existing quantities nor their grade. Figures as high as 150.000 T/annum and more would be quickly reached, and it is necessary to wonder already now if enough capital can be attracted to meet these requirements. There is only one solution to this problem: improve the conversion ratio of the nuclear system and quickly reach the breeding; this would lead to the reduction of the natural uranium consumption by a factor of about 50. However, this condition is not sufficient; the commercial breeder must have a breeding gain as high as possible because the Pu out-of-pile time and the Pu losses in the cycle could lead to an unacceptable doubling time for the system, if the breeding gain is too low. That is the reason why it is vital to develop highperformance breeder reactors. The present paper indicates how the Gas-cooled Breeder Reactor [GBR] can meet the problems mentioned above, on the basis of recent and realistic studies. It briefly describes the present status of GBR development, from the predecessors in the gas cooled reactor line, particularly the AGR. It shows how the GBR fuel takes mostly profit from the LMFBR fuel irradiation experience. It compares the GBR performance on a consistent basis with that of the LMFBR. The GBR capital and fuel cycle costs are compared with those of thermal and fast reactors respectively. The conclusion is, based on a cost-benefit study, that the GBR must be quickly developed in order

The trend of new material development are being to carried out not only highperformance but also environmental attraction. Especially nano composite material which enhances the functional properties of components, extending the component life resulting to reduced the wastes and environmental contamination, has a great effect on various industrial area. The application of nano composite, depends on the polymer matrix and filler materials, has various application from semiconductor to medical field. In spite of nano composite merits, nano composite study are confined to a few special materials as a lab, scale because a few technical difficulties are still on hold. Therefore, the purpose of this study establishes the systematical planning to carried out the next generation projects on order to compete with other countries and overcome the protective policy of advanced countries with grasping over sea's development trends and our present status. (author).

This article is intended to discuss inspirational aspects on how to lead a high-performance team. Cogent topics discussed include how to hire staff through methods of "topgrading" with reference to Geoff Smart and "getting the right people on the bus" referencing Jim Collins' work. In addition, once the staff is hired, this article covers how to separate the "eagles from the ducks" and how to inspire one's staff by creating the right culture with suggestions for further reading by Don Miguel Ruiz (The four agreements) and John Maxwell (21 Irrefutable laws of leadership). In addition, Simon Sinek's concept of "Start with Why" is elaborated to help a leader know what the core element should be with any superior culture. Thieme Medical Publishers.

The trend of new material development are being to carried out not only highperformance but also environmental attraction. Especially nano composite material which enhances the functional properties of components, extending the component life resulting to reduced the wastes and environmental contamination, has a great effect on various industrial area. The application of nano composite, depends on the polymer matrix and filler materials, has various application from semiconductor to medical field. In spite of nano composite merits, nano composite study are confined to a few special materials as a lab, scale because a few technical difficulties are still on hold. Therefore, the purpose of this study establishes the systematical planning to carried out the next generation projects on order to compete with other countries and overcome the protective policy of advanced countries with grasping over sea's development trends and our present status. (author).

The trend of new material development are being to carried out not only highperformance but also environmental attraction. Especially nano composite material which enhances the functional properties of components, extending the component life resulting to reduced the wastes and environmental contamination, has a great effect on various industrial area. The application of nano composite, depends on the polymer matrix and filler materials, has various application from semiconductor to medical field. In spite of nano composite merits, nano composite study are confined to a few special materials as a lab, scale because a few technical difficulties are still on hold. Therefore, the purpose of this study establishes the systematical planning to carried out the next generation projects on order to compete with other countries and overcome the protective policy of advanced countries with grasping over sea's development trends and our present status. (author).

parallelization and automatic vectorization is attractive as it transparently optimizes programs. The thesis contributes an improved dependence analysis for explicitly parallel programs. These improvements lead to more loops being vectorized, on average we achieve a speedup of 1.46 over the existing dependence...... analysis and vectorizer in GCC. Automatic optimizations often fail for theoretical and practical reasons. When they fail we argue that a hybrid approach can be effective. Using compiler feedback, we propose to use the programmer’s intuition and insight to achieve highperformance. Compiler feedback...... enlightens the programmer why a given optimization was not applied, and suggest how to change the source code to make it more amenable to optimizations. We show how this can yield significant speedups and achieve 2.4 faster execution on a real industrial use case. To aid in parallel debugging we propose...

Sustainable use of groundwater must ensure not only that the future resource is not threatened by overuse, but also that natural environments that depend on the resource, such as stream baseflows, riparian vegetation, aquatic ecosystems, and wetlands are protected. To properly manage groundwater resources, accurate information about the inputs (recharge) and outputs (pumpage and natural discharge) within each groundwater basin is needed so that the long-term behavior of the aquifer and its sustainable yield can be estimated or reassessed. As a first step towards this effort, this work highlights some key groundwater recharge studies in the Kansas High Plains at different scales, such as regional soil-water budget and groundwater modeling studies, county-scale groundwater recharge studies, as well as field-experimental local studies, including some original new findings, with an emphasis on assumptions and limitations as well as on environmental factors affecting recharge processes. The general impact of irrigation and cultivation on recharge is to appreciably increase the amount of recharge, and in many cases to exceed precipitation as the predominant source of recharge. The imbalance between the water input (recharge) to the High Plains aquifer and the output (pumpage and stream baseflows primarily) is shown to be severe, and responses to stabilize the system by reducing water use, increasing irrigation efficiency, adopting water-saving land-use practices, and other measures are outlined. Finally, the basic steps necessary to move towards sustainable use of groundwater in the High Plains are delineated, such as improving the knowledge base, reporting and providing access to information, furthering public education, as well as promoting better understanding of the public's attitudinal motivations; adopting the ecosystem and adaptive management approaches to managing groundwater; further improving water efficiency; exploiting the full potential of dryland and

Full Text Available This paper’s objectives are to learn the effect of glass powder, silica fume, Polycarboxylate Ether, and gravel to optimizing composition of each factor in making HighPerformance SCC. Taguchi method is proposed in this paper as best solution to minimize specimen variable which is more than 80 variations. Taguchi data analysis method is applied to provide composition, optimizing, and the effect of contributing materials for nine variable of specimens. Concrete’s workability was analyzed using Slump flow test, V-funnel test, and L-box test. Compressive and porosity test were performed for the hardened state. With a dimension of 100×200 mm the cylindrical specimens were cast for compressive test with the age of 3, 7, 14, 21, 28 days. Porosity test was conducted at 28 days. It is revealed that silica fume contributes greatly to slump flow and porosity. Coarse aggregate shows the greatest contributing factor to L-box and compressive test. However, all factors show unclear result to V-funnel test.

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management is investigating alternatives to conventional cover designs for uranium mill tailings. A cover constructed in 2000 near Monticello, Utah, USA, was a redundant design with a conventional low-conductivity composite cover overlain with an alternative cover designed to mimic the natural soil water balance as measured in nearby undisturbed native soils and vegetation. To limit percolation, the alternative cover design relies on a 160-cm layer of sandy clay loam soil overlying a 40- cm sand capillary barrier for water storage, and a planting of native sagebrush steppe vegetation to seasonally release soil water through evapotranspiration (ET). Water balance monitoring within a 3.0-ha drainage lysimeter, embedded in the cover during construction, provided convincing evidence that the cover has performed well over a 9-year period (2000- 2009). The total cumulative percolation, 4.8 mm (approximately 0.5 mm yr -1 ), satisfied a regulatory goal of -1 . Most percolation can be attributed to the very wet winter and spring of 2004-2005, when soil water content exceeded the storage capacity of the cover. Diversity, percent cover, and leaf area of vegetation increased over the monitoring period. Field and laboratory evaluations several years after construction show that soil structural development, changes in soil hydraulic properties, and development of vegetation patterns have not adversely impacted cover performance. A new test facility was constructed in 2008 near Grand Junction, Colorado, USA, to evaluate low-cost methods for renovating or transforming conventional covers into more sustainable ET covers. (authors)

The Woods is a sustainable community built by Habitat for Humanity in 2013. This community comprises 30 homes that are high-performance and energy-efficient. With support from Tacoma Public Utilities and the Bonneville Power Administration, the BA-PIRC team is researching the energy performance of these homes and the ductless heat pumps they employ.

Highlights: • Piezoultrasonic-assisted biodiesel production was exergetically analyzed. • Alcohol content, sonication time, and temperature affected exergetic parameters. • 6:1 methanol/oil, 10 min sonication, and 60 °C temperature were the best conditions. • The exergetic sustainability index at the favorable conditions was found to be 11. - Abstract: In this work a thermodynamic model was developed to attain enhanced process comprehension of waste cooking oil (WCO) transesterification process in a low power, high frequency piezo-based ultrasound reactor. The reactor performance was assessed using the exergy concept to distinguish the effects of various operational variables, i.e., methanol to oil molar ratio (4:1–8:1), ultrasonic irradiation time (6–10 min), and temperature (40–60 °C) on the efficiency and sustainability factors. The exergetic efficiency of the developed reactor was found to be ranging from 98% to 99% and from 9% to 91% using the universal and functional definitions, respectively. The maximum functional exergetic efficiency as a decision making parameter, was found at 91% for methanol to oil molar ratio of 6:1, ultrasonic irradiation time of 10 min, and temperature of 60 °C. The exergetic sustainability index of the transesterification process at the selected conditions was determined at about 11. Under these conditions, the reactor efficiently converted triglycerides to methyl esters with an acceptable conversion efficiency of 97%, satisfying the ASTM standard. Overall, the outcomes of the current survey manifested that exergy analysis can be a preferred basis for decision making on the efficiency and sustainability of various biodiesel synthesizing systems.

Full Text Available The severe hot temperature and high traffic loadings in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA are causing distress in flexible pavements within a few years of service. Secondly, the conventional bitumen extracted from Saudi oil refineries have a performance grade of 64-10 (PG 64-10, which does not meet the SuperPave performance grade requirement for most of the KSA’s regions. In order to improve the performance grade of bitumen, different percentages of municipal wastes (plastic and crumb rubber were used as bitumen additives. The performance of bitumen at low, intermediate, and high temperatures was evaluated. This is important as the waste production is rising significantly due to the fast urbanization and high population growth in the KSA. Particularly, when there are very few ways of recycling these wastes (municipal, as well as industrial, which in fact have great impact on the environment. High-density polyethylene (HDP, low-density polyethylene (LDP, and crumb rubber (CR with 5%, 10%, and 15% by weight of bitumen, were mixed with the base bitumen (PG 64-10. Rotational viscometer (RV, dynamic shear rheometer (DSR, and bending beam rheometer (BBR were used to evaluate the viscosity, rutting, fatigue, and low-temperature behavior of base and modified binders. The test results indicated that the rutting (permanent deformation and fatigue resistance were significantly improved in modified binders due to the improvement in the visco-elastic properties.

A microstrip antenna for radiating circularly polarized electromagnetic waves comprising a cluster array of at least four microstrip radiator elements, each of which is provided with dual orthogonal coplanar feeds in phase quadrature relation achieved by connection to an asymmetric T-junction power divider impedance notched at resonance. The dual fed circularly polarized reference element is positioned with its axis at a 45 deg angle with respect to the unit cell axis. The other three dual fed elements in the unit cell are positioned and fed with a coplanar feed structure with sequential rotation and phasing to enhance the axial ratio and impedance matching performance over a wide bandwidth. The centers of the radiator elements are disposed at the corners of a square with each side of a length d in the range of 0.7 to 0.9 times the free space wavelength of the antenna radiation and the radiator elements reside in a square unit cell area of sides equal to 2d and thereby permit the array to be used as a phased array antenna for electronic scanning and is realizable in a high temperature superconducting thin film material for high efficiency.

Full Text Available Sustainability is not just for Christmas… it’s for life. Sustainable solutions, whether sought in terms of business strategies, social policies, or the exploitation of natural resources have to serve organizations and communities in the long term, sometimes very long term, as well as the short term. Static analysis is unlikely to be able to evaluate candidate solutions fully, and is more likely to focus on the short-term future to the detriment of the longer-term. Sustainable solutions are more likely to be developed from studies based on deep analysis using systems approaches, and from system dynamics (SD approaches in particular.

The Australian National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) manages Earth Systems data collections sourced from several domains and organisations onto a single HighPerformance Data (HPD) Node to further Australia's national priority research and innovation agenda. The NCI HPD Node has rapidly established its value, currently managing over 10 PBytes of datasets from collections that span a wide range of disciplines including climate, weather, environment, geoscience, geophysics, water resources and social sciences. Importantly, in order to facilitate broad user uptake, maximise reuse and enable transdisciplinary access through software and standardised interfaces, the datasets, associated information systems and processes have been incorporated into the design and operation of a unified platform that NCI has called, the National Environmental Research Data Interoperability Platform (NERDIP). The key goal of the NERDIP is to regularise data access so that it is easily discoverable, interoperable for different domains and enabled for highperformance methods. It adopts and implements international standards and data conventions, and promotes scientific integrity within a highperformance computing and data analysis environment. NCI has established a rich and flexible computing environment to access to this data, through the NCI supercomputer; a private cloud that supports both domain focused virtual laboratories and in-common interactive analysis interfaces; as well as remotely through scalable data services. Data collections of this importance must be managed with careful consideration of both their current use and the needs of the end-communities, as well as its future potential use, such as transitioning to more advanced software and improved methods. It is therefore critical that the data platform is both well-managed and trusted for stable production use (including transparency and reproducibility), agile enough to incorporate new technological advances and

Greenhouse gas emission (GHG) has been increasingly a sensitive issue that is across border and impacting global public interests. While the use of renewable energy technology is perceived as a means to enable delivery of emission-free solutions, its penetration into the energy market has not been timely and significant enough as projected in prior studies. This article aims to illustrate some of the critical hurdles as the policy makers start formulating environmentally friendly energy consumption means for the public in Asian economies. In particular, through analyzing the characteristics in the case of Hong Kong, the authors unveil the challenges for this highly dense city to reach a landscape of alternative energy resources for its transition into a sustainable economy. Education and engagement with the public about a sustainable future, alignment of stakeholders' economic interests and absorption capacity of emerging technologies are argued as the three main challenges and initiatives in mitigating the underlying systemic hurdles that remain to be overcome. Observing the current responses to the externalities by the policy makers in Hong Kong, this study articulates the critical challenges to mitigate these specific systemic hurdles embedded in the existing infrastructure of a highly dense city. Possible mitigating measures to enable deployment of integrative sustainable energy solutions in dealing with climate change are discussed. (author)

The improvement of potential confinement reported in the last IAEA meeting was attained by axisymmetrization of heating pattern of electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH). It was experimentally shown that the axisymmetrization of ECRH really produced axisymmetric potential profile. GAMMA 10 experiments have advanced in longer sustainment and high density operation of potential confinement. Experiments for long sustainment of potential confinement were carried out in order to study problems of steady state operation of a tandem mirror reactor. A confining potential was sustained for 150 ms by sequentially injecting two (ECRH) powers in the plug region. It was difficult before to increase the central cell density higher than about 2.5x10 12 cm -3 with and/or without potential confinement due to some density limiting mechanism. In order to overcome this problem, a new higher frequency ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) system (RF3: 36-76 MHz) has been installed. A higher density plasma has been produced with RF3. In addition to RF3, neutral beam injection (NBI) in the anchor cell became effective by reducing neutral gas from beam injectors. Potential confinement experiments have advanced to higher central cell densities up to 4x10 12 cm -3 with RF3 and NBI. A 20% density increase due to the potential confinement was obtained in the high density experiments. (author)

implied nearly frozen flow in the nozzle and yielded performance ranges of 800-1100 sec for hydrogen and 400-600 sec for ammonia. Inferred thrust-to-power ratios were in the range of 30-10 lbf/MWe for hydrogen and 60-20 lbf/MWe for ammonia. Successful completion of this test series represents a fundamental milestone in the progression of high power arcjet technology, and it is hoped that the results may serve as a reliable touchstone for the future development of MW-class regeneratively-cooled flex-propellant plasma rockets.

Art education is a systemic and extensive network within which children, youth, and adults make and learn about material culture. This lecture considers three sites of theory and practice that I see as ascendant in circulating through this network. These sites are sustainability, participatory culture, and performing democracy. I argue that…

Roughly 27% of the universe is thought to be composed of dark matter. The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) relies on the emission of light from xenon atoms after a collision with a dark matter particle. After a particle interaction in the detector, two things can happen: the xenon will emit light and charge. The charge (electrons), in the liquid xenon needs to be pulled into the gas section so that it can interact with gas and emit light. This allows LUX to convert a single electron into many photons. This is done by applying a high voltage across the liquid and gas regions, effectively ripping electrons out of the liquid xenon and into the gas. The current device used to detect photons is the photomultiplier tube (PMT). These devices are large and costly. In recent years, a new technology that is capable of detecting single photons has emerged, the silicon photomultiplier (SiPM). These devices are cheaper and smaller than PMTs. Their performance in a high electric fields, such as those found in LUX, are unknown. It is possible that a large electric field could introduce noise on the SiPM signal, drowning the single photon detection capability. My hypothesis is that SiPMs will not observe a significant increase is noise at an electric field of roughly 10kV/cm (an electric field within the range used in detectors like LUX). I plan to test this hypothesis by first rotating the SiPMs with no applied electric field between two metal plates roughly 2 cm apart, providing a control data set. Then using the same angles test the dark counts with the constant electric field applied. Possibly the most important aspect of LUX, is the photon detector because it's what detects the signals. Dark matter is detected in the experiment by looking at the ratio of photons to electrons emitted for a given interaction in the detector. Interactions with a low electron to photon ratio are more like to be dark matter events than those with a high electron to photon ratio. The ability to

The allegiance of partnering organisations and their employees to an Extended Enterprise performance is its proverbial sword of Damocles. Literature on Extended Enterprises focuses on collaboration, inter-organizational integration and learning to avoid diminishing or missing allegiance becoming an

OAK-B135 Advanced Tokamak (AT) research in DIII-D seeks to provide a scientific basis for steady-state highperformance operation in future devices. These regimes require high toroidal beta to maximize fusion output and poloidal beta to maximize the self-driven bootstrap current. Achieving these conditions requires integrated, simultaneous control of the current and pressure profiles, and active magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stability control. The building blocks for AT operation are in hand. Resistive wall mode stabilization via plasma rotation and active feedback with non-axisymmetric coils allows routine operation above the no-wall beta limit. Neoclassical tearing modes are stabilized by active feedback control of localized electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD). Plasma shaping and profile control provide further improvements. Under these conditions, bootstrap supplies most of the current. Steady-state operation requires replacing the remaining Ohmic current, mostly located near the half-radius, with noninductive external sources. In DIII-D this current is provided by ECCD, and nearly stationary AT discharges have been sustained with little remaining Ohmic current. Fast wave current drive is being developed to control the central magnetic shear. Density control, with divertor cryopumps, of AT discharges with edge localized moding (ELMing) H-mode edges facilitates high current drive efficiency at reactor relevant collisionalities. A sophisticated plasma control system allows integrated control of these elements. Close coupling between modeling and experiment is key to understanding the separate elements, their complex nonlinear interactions, and their integration into self-consistent highperformance scenarios. Progress on this development, and its implications for next-step devices, will be illustrated by results of recent experiment and simulation efforts

An overarching goal of magnetic fusion research is the integration of steady state operation with high fusion power density, high plasma β, good thermal and fast particle confinement, and manageable heat and particle fluxes to reactor internal components. NSTX has made significant progress in integrating and understanding the interplay between these competing elements. Sustainedhigh elongation up to 2.5 and H-mode transitions during the I p ramp-up have increased β p and reduced l i at high current resulting in I p flat-top durations exceeding 0.8s for I p >0.8MA. These shape and profile changes delay the onset of deleterious global MHD activity yielding β N values >4.5 and β T ∼20% maintained for several current diffusion times. Higher ∫ N discharges operating above the non-wall limit are sustained via rotational stabilization of the RWM. H-mode confinement scaling factors relative to H98(y,2) span the range 1±0.4 for B T >4kG and show a stron (Nearly linear) residual scaling with B T . Power balance analysis indicates the electron thermal transport dominates the loss power in beam-heated H m ode discharges, but the core χ e can be significantly reduced through current profile modification consistent with reversed magnetic shear. Small ELM regimes have been obtained in highperformance plasmas on NSTX, but the ELM type and associated pedestal energy loss are found to depend sensitively on the boundary elongation, magnetic balance, and edge collisionality. NPA data and TRANSP analysis suggest resonant interactions with mid-radius tearing modes may lead to large fast-ion transport. The associated fast-ion diffusion and/or loss likely impact(s) both the driven current and power deposition profiles from NBI heating. Results from experiments to initiate the plasma without the ohmic solenoid and integrated scenario with the TSC code will also be described. (Author)

We demonstrate the fabrication of a loose, negatively charged nanofiltration (NF) membrane with tailored selectivity for the removal of perfluoroalkyl substances with reduced scaling potential. A selective polyamide layer was fabricated on top of a polyethersulfone support via interfacial polymerization of trimesoyl chloride and a mixture of piperazine and bipiperidine. Incorporating high molecular weight bipiperidine during the interfacial polymerization enables the formation of a loose, nanoporous selective layer structure. The fabricated NF membrane possessed a negative surface charge and had a pore diameter of ~1.2 nm, much larger than a widely used commercial NF membrane (i.e., NF270 with pore diameter of ~0.8 nm). We evaluated the performance of the fabricated NF membrane for the rejection of different salts (i.e., NaCl, CaCl2, and Na2SO4) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). The fabricated NF membrane exhibited a high retention of PFOA (~90%) while allowing high passage of scale-forming cations (i.e., calcium). We further performed gypsum scaling experiments to demonstrate lower scaling potential of the fabricated loose porous NF membrane compared to NF membranes having a dense selective layer under solution conditions simulating high water recovery. Our results demonstrate that properly designed NF membranes are a critical component of a high recovery NF system, which provide an efficient and sustainable solution for remediation of groundwater contaminated with perfluoroalkyl substances.

For this research project, sustainable transportation can be viewed as the provision of safe, effective, and : efficient access and mobility into the future while considering economic, social, and environmental needs. : This project developed a perfo...

Full Text Available of consistent condition assessments is generally underrated and seldom fully utilised. Condition assessments should be the basis for management and maintenance decisions in the built environment towards sustainable construction. Subsequent to the 1995 National...

Campus sustainability is part of an ongoing process of modernization at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Initiated in 2002, it grew to include the Sustainable Campus Initiative (SCI) as of 2008. The SCI embodies a diversity of areas, reflecting the multifaceted nature of sustainability and the resulting need for a holistic approach, by tapping ORNL’s multiplatform science and technology expertise in a pathway critical in catalyzing change and shaping the Laboratory’s future. The past year has shown significant progress for the SCI as well as for sustainable development at large, with the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris setting a new pace and direction for worldwide mitigation of climate change in the coming decades.

Although the term sustainable development is commonly used today, there is not yet a commonly accepted definition. Various ways of measuring sustainability have been proposed. To show how these issues are being effectively addressed in modern uranium developments, we will review some methods of defining the environmental component of sustainable development in the mining and mineral-processing sector. Environmental impacts associated with uranium extraction and processing in modern facilities are modest. Air and water emissions are well controlled. Waste materials are subject to comprehensive management programmes. The size of the impacted area is smaller than in other energy sectors, providing good opportunity to minimize land impact. Experience over the past three decades facilitated gradual, persistent, but cumulatively significant environmental improvements in the uranium production sector. Cameco's uranium mining and processing facilities exemplify these improvements. These improvements can be expected to continue, supporting our argument of Cameco's environmental sustainability. (author)

Sustainability and livability in transportation, as the concepts referring to the capability of transportation systems to maintain the well being of our society, have been widely : accepted as the critical principles to improve quality of life and he...

Dynamic capabilities (DCs) are the inherent capabilities developed by firms through the implementation of Sustainable Supply Chain practices. These DCs serve as a backbone for the firms to achieve competitive advantages in contemporary ever-changing markets. The present study focuses on exploring...... industrial managers to identify specific influential DCs for each performance measure category by overcoming the limitations of few experts through the application of the grey multi criteria decision making system. Identifying and prioritizing performance-specific DCs allow sustainable supply chain oriented...... performance measures identified from the literature. First, through a questionnaire survey with industrial experts from south India as respondents, the initial list of 77 DCs is confined to a list of 40 essential DCs. Second, the shortlisted 40 DCs are grouped under six performance measures; a logical...

Processing liquid wastes frequently generates off gas streams with high humidity and liquid aerosols. Droplet laden air streams can be produced from tank mixing or sparging and processes such as reforming or evaporative volume reduction. Unfortunately these wet air streams represent a genuine threat to HEPA filters. High efficiency mist eliminators (HEME) are one option for removal of liquid aerosols with high dissolved or suspended solids content. HEMEs have been used extensively in industrial applications, however they have not seen widespread use in the nuclear industry. Filtering efficiency data along with loading curves are not readily available for these units and data that exist are not easily translated to operational parameters in liquid waste treatment plants. A specialized test stand has been developed to evaluate the performance of HEME elements under use conditions of a US DOE facility. HEME elements were tested at three volumetric flow rates using aerosols produced from an iron-rich waste surrogate. The challenge aerosol included submicron particles produced from Laskin nozzles and super micron particles produced from a hollow cone spray nozzle. Test conditions included ambient temperature and relative humidities greater than 95%. Data collected during testing HEME elements from three different manufacturers included volumetric flow rate, differential temperature across the filter housing, downstream relative humidity, and differential pressure (dP) across the filter element. Filter challenge was discontinued at three intermediate dPs and the filter to allow determining filter efficiency using dioctyl phthalate and then with dry surrogate aerosols. Filtering efficiencies of the clean HEME, the clean HEME loaded with water, and the HEME at maximum dP were also collected using the two test aerosols. Results of the testing included differential pressure vs. time loading curves for the nine elements tested along with the mass of moisture and solid

This paper investigates the performance of a ground source heat pump that is coupled with a photovoltaic system to provide cooling and heating demands of a zero-energy residential building. Exergy and sustainability analyses have been conducted to evaluate the exergy destruction rate and SI of different compartments of the hybrid system. The effects of monthly thermal load variations on the performance of the hybrid system are investigated. The hybrid system consists of a vertical ground sour...

Full Text Available Using a survey of 324 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs of the Yangtze River Delta in China, this study discusses the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, absorptive capacity, environmental dynamism, and corporate technological innovation performance. The results based on a moderated moderation model show that the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and innovation performance is significantly positive. The absorptive capacity can positively moderate this relationship. When the external environment is in high dynamism, the moderating effect of absorptive capacity will be stronger than when the environment is in low dynamism.

Although dominating the consumer electronics markets as the power source of choice for popular portable devices, the common lithium battery is not yet suited for use in sustainable electrified road transport. The development of advanced, higher-energy lithium batteries is essential in the rapid establishment of the electric car market. Owing to its exceptionally high energy potentiality, the lithium-air battery is a very appealing candidate for fulfilling this role. However, the performance of such batteries has been limited to only a few charge-discharge cycles with low rate capability. Here, by choosing a suitable stable electrolyte and appropriate cell design, we demonstrate a lithium-air battery capable of operating over many cycles with capacity and rate values as high as 5,000 mAh g(carbon)(-1) and 3 A g(carbon)(-1), respectively. For this battery we estimate an energy density value that is much higher than those offered by the currently available lithium-ion battery technology.

, many difficulties still surround the implementation and management of ecodesign. The main challenges in embedding ecodesign into PDRP are: (i) the lack of support to select key performance indicators (KPI) to measure how well a company is being successful in ecodesign integration from a product......’s impact on the overall corporate behaviour.This research aims at presenting a comprehensive set of sustainability KPI to measure the ecodesign implementation into the PDRP by systematically reviewing the relevant literature regarding sustainability KPIs (social, economic and environmental dimensions......). The underlying research question is “which arethe KPIs for measuring sustainability of ecodesign integration into the product development and related processes?” This research excludes the indicators dealing directly and exclusively with product’s attributes and properties, such as energy and material...

A highperformance CMOS Fastbus slave interface ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) supporting all addressing and data transfer modes defined in the IEEE 960 - 1986 standard is presented. The FAstbus Slave Integrated Circuit (FASIC) is an interface between the asynchronous Fastbus and a clock synchronous processor/memory bus. It can work stand-alone or together with a 32 bit microprocessor. The FASIC is a programmable device enabling its direct use in many different applications. A set of programmable address mapping windows can map Fastbus addresses to convenient memory addresses and at the same time act as address decoding logic. Data rates of 100 MBytes/sec to Fastbus can be obtained using an internal FIFO in the FASIC to buffer data between the two buses during block transfers. Message passing from Fastbus to a microprocessor on the slave module is supported. A compact (70 mm x 170 mm) Fastbus slave piggy back sub-card interface including level conversion between ECL and TTL signal levels has been implemented using surface mount components and the 208 pin FASIC chip